


Feeling Sentimental

by lily_l_bell



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A splash of Spanish, Ableism, Accomodating, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Biting, Bleeding, Blow Jobs, Consensual Sex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual galra keith, Frottage, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Mention of STDs, NSFW, Neurodivergent keith, Outdoor Sex, Perception of characters as 18+, Positive portrayal of safe sex practices, Questioning of Self Worth, Scratching, Slow Burn, Stimming, Suggestion of submission kink, Thar be fuckin, emotional child abuse, killing monsters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-22 13:46:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7441498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_l_bell/pseuds/lily_l_bell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith is maybe a little weird. Like he's from another planet. He is so sensitive to sounds and smells and tastes... and touch. Lance is more than willing to be accommodating. Lance is more than willing to stay when Keith fears everyone else might leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. My Weird Matches Your Weird

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy. This is my first fic on ao3. I'm klance trash and I like to explore the galra!keith headcanon.
> 
> FYI I headcanon both Keith and Lance as 18+ and think of the Garrison as higher education. Also I imagine the Voltron universe to be in the future. 
> 
> More chapters to come! I just don't know how many it will be.
> 
> Thanks for reading.

Everything change on the Balmera. Well, not everything in the whole universe. But to Lance it felt like a big change when he began to question his previously held perspectives of the Red Paladin.

When he had first met Keith back at the Garrison his animosity had been somewhat sincere. Lance acknowledged that some of it had been jealousy towards how easily Keith took to piloting, especially when everyone else seemed to think the best way to motivate Lance was to compare him to Keith. The smaller boy was also distant and could be curt and rude at times. Early on in their acquaintanceship, Lance had put forth a smidgen of effort towards befriending his would be rival. He hadn’t put much attention into it and had really only conveyed openness with body language. Keith’s reply body language came back as closed, stilted, and uninterested. It made him seem pretentious. It immediately put Lance off.

Once they were both Paladins, however, the close quarters forced them to spend more time with each other. Lance’s perspective, and his rivalry, began to shift. He began to realise that Keith’s behavior wasn’t intended to be rude or peevish, but rather he had no comprehension of body language or social ques. Lance’s jibes became more playful, harmless, and teasing after that realization. He never vocalized his suspicion, but Keith had a lot of behaviors that looked a bit like Aspergers up close. Lance had a cousin with that condition and so he noticed it, and saw how it helped to shape a person; especially in terms of socialization and perceptions of the world around them. Mateo didn’t always name it. He often called it Other Planet Syndrome to describe how the world felt. Like he was an explorer from another world trying to understand this one that he’d been born into. Other Planet Syndrome sounded very comfortable when he thought of Keith, but it was only a theory. It changed nothing really about their being a team. However, he didn’t feel, in his less than expert opinion, that he had any right to suggest to someone else whether they were autistic or not. He kept it to himself, but looked at Keith’s behavior through different lenses afterwards, and allowed his rivalry to shrink, being replaced instead by fondness.

The fondness welcomed a change in Lance’s own behavior. Outside of his playful teasing he started being relatively direct with Keith. He still didn’t understand the Voltron-Cheer but that would probably take Keith twenty years to master, along with most dirty jokes. The poor guy just didn’t have a mind for innuendo. Lance also began taking note of Keith’s sensitivity to certain sensations; loud sudden noises, overwhelming smells, and over seasoned foods. Keith, for all his pretences and trying to hide it, had remarkable senses. He was a fascinating person once Lance allowed himself to observe and get to know him. He started being more accommodating; if his soap smelled too strongly Keith may feel compelled to stay upwind of him or put distance between them. If he announced himself by shouting it was Keith’s ears that were ringing afterwards. He liked to tease but he didn’t like to do things that actually made anyone physically uncomfortable. Lance put in a little extra effort to not be a total dick to Keith all the time and while the Red Paladin didn’t understand filthy jokes he wasn’t completely dense. Keith noticed Lance.

He noticed him rather aggressively. Lance began to find Keith willingly being around him during their free time, or gravitating into his space during team meetings, or hell, he started sitting next to Lance at dinner every single night despite there being seats galore! It was maybe a little strange, but it was also a little nice. Keith’s trust was hard earned. He was like a pissy cat. The same warmth one feels after coaxing the most skittish of cats into friendship was akin to what he felt when Keith stood shoulder to shoulder with him during meetings. 

But Keith was Keith, and he had to go and make it weird. Sometimes Lance would catch Keith just staring at him. Not “staring into nothing but just so happens to be in Lance’s general direction” kind of staring, but the way Socks would stare down a mouse or a little bird that he wanted to hunt. It was intense and it was hungry. Unlike Socks the cat Keith could tell when he had been caught. His eyes would widen, blink rapidly, and then he would go about pretending he’d been looking around. 

What.

The.

Hell.

Lance took up peaking out of the corning of his eye when he caught sight of Keith boring into his skull. Just how long would Keith stare at him if left to his own devices? The scientific method prove that, on average, it was a really fucking long time! Something like that should make someone feel uncomfortable and Lance did too, just not in the expected way. He thought that should make him want to feel unsettled, but it didn’t. It made him feel too tight in his own skin, like someone had his intestines in a vice grip. Those dark eyes gleaming like he wanted to eat Lance was nonsensically arousing!

Lance wasn’t going to lie. He kind of sort of really liked to be roughly treated. He was the mouse, just praying that the cat would pounce. He didn’t want to accidentally read too much into that gaze. Keith was an odd duck. He probably didn’t realize he had the most mouth watering case of fuck-me eyes in all of space. 

The Blue Paladin found that Keith was starting to express tactile affection towards him. A hand on the shoulder, a brush of the arms, sitting hip to hip on the sofa. He knew it was probably a sign that he was some kind of twisted pervert but those small little expressions just made him want those hungry eyes on him more. He wanted to smother those scowling lips with his own. He yearned for this pissy cat to claw him to ribbons and devour him. Yep. He was 100% depraved. The part of him that spent nights alone in the dark revelled in his own filthy mind, but during the light of day another part of him was ashamed about having those kinds of thoughts about a teammate; a good friend. He couldn’t really help it but the restraint he was able to summon up was the second biggest surprise of his life.

The first biggest being weeks later when he found Keith lurking just outside his door, looking for all the world like someone who had something to say but wasn’t happy about it. The silence was suffocating after the first three seconds of them croaking at each other in surprise. Lance, fortunately, recovered first.

“Hey buddy. Want something?” he asked of the fidgeting fighter pilot.

“I need to ask you something. Alone. It’s private. You’re- You’re better at this kind of thing and… and I need your advice.” Keith pushed, wrinkling his nose at the idea of getting Lance’s advice about anything. The shorter Paladin pressed a hand to Lance’s chest and forced him back into the room before shutting the door and leaning against it, unleashing the intensity of that burning stare on him. Lance felt like lava was swirling in his belly… and slowly pooling lower. Keith was sin incarnate and Lance wanted to be a sinner more than anything. So much for that Good Catholic Upbringing™. 

Lance licked his lips, they felt hella dry. “What, um. What did you need my help with? Can’t figure out how to get all that hair out of your face?” A jab was just what he needed to break Keith from that drowning gaze. 

“No, idiot!” Keith snapped. “Look. I- I know I really suck at getting people. Like. Like what they mean when they talk between the lines and like… like with body language and facial expressions and stuff. I mean. I just. I just don’t want to look like a dork.”

“Too late.”

“Would you let me finish, asshole? I’m trying to bare my fucking soul here, god!” Keith snarled and Lance once again wondered how it was fair that he could be so turned on by that dangerous, animalistic sound. 

“What I’m trying to say,” Keith continued, “Is that. I wanna know. If you like me.” He wrinkled up his nose and glared seething hate into the carpet between his shoes. He refused to make eye contact with Lance through a single syllable of that sentence. If Keith was having a hard time making eye contact Lance knew this had to be a big deal.

“Yeah man, I like you.” Lance chuckled. “You’re my friend okay? I don’t even feel like being rivals with you anymore. Now I just do it for fun.” Lance wiped the grin off his face as soon as Keith’s eyes returned from their carpet investigation.

“I know that. Dumbass. That’s not what I meant.” His face was becoming red. Lance couldn’t tell if it was anger or embarrassment. Probably both. Anger-assment. “I meant like. Do you like me?” He drawled a little on the ‘like’, staring intently at Lance, as though the body language he couldn’t read would answer his question. 

“You don’t mean like as in not-hating you, huh?”

“I mean like as in kissing and fucking and shit.” Keith shrugged, blunt. He’d run out of subtle and he was back to himself. “If you don’t, it’s okay. Just say so. But, I thought I was picking up signals. And, if you wanna do that kind of stuff, I’d be okay with doing it too. With you, I mean.” Ah yes, now it was just embarrassment. That poor carpet, Keith was going to glare a hole in it. 

“Um.” Was Lance’s oh so cool and romantic reply, “Sorry. Um. Yeah okay. I mean, yeah I like you in that way too I guess.” He was absolutely astounded, floored, in an emotional state of I’ve-Fallen-and-Can’t-Get-Up. Well, part of him could get up but that was physical, not metaphorical.

“Okay great.” Keith sighed and relaxed, as though someone had lifted a three thousand pound weight off him. Before Lance could rewire his brain Keith had crossed the distance between them and initiated a good ol’ college try at a kiss. 

It was clear that Keith had absolutely no fucking idea how to kiss.

It was sloppy, for one, it was 90% teeth and 10% spit for another, and he knew fuck all about where to put his hands. Lance thought he was going to bust in his goddamn pants in spite of it. 

Keith had no experience, this was evident, but he made up for it ten fold in enthusiasm alone. He wanted. He just didn’t know how to express it, like everything else in his life. Lance pulled them apart and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. 

“Wow. Okay.” He chuckled, Keith did not seem impressed. In fact he tried to back off. “Whoa, whoa whoa, wait a minute there Tiger.” Lance teased, wrapping his lanky arms around Keith’s shoulders. “It’s not a race.” He corrected and leaned his own head in. Lance had a little more experience. He’d dated a little before coming to the Garrison. His adventures didn’t stop after coming, but they were more casual. Lance didn’t break the kiss, but found Keith’s hands and helped guide them where they would be best, around Lance’s shoulders. His own hands found very comfortable spaces between Keith’s shoulder blades and the small of his waist. Keith was still eager, still trying to take control, but Lance would let him have it when he was ready. 

“Not a race.” He repeated hoarsely when he broke away for them to breath, pressing his nose into Keith’s jaw and planting a smaller kiss there as well. He drew his head back to check Keith’s reaction. Those fiery eyes were like smoke swirling behind glass. “You good?” he asked, when Keith worked his jaw but no sound came out.

“I!” Keith stammered. “No, yeah, dude I am good! Yeah!” The cool pilot had lost some of his composed stoicism. “Just. Lemme try again. Please.” He pushed, crowding Lance until he had his back pressed into the wall and Keith pressed into his chest. 

Lance snorted to mask how very strongly his body was reacting to this new set up. “Yeah, go ahead. Just don’t bite my tongue off. Goddamn.” He puffed, leaning his head in. 

It wasn’t perfect, but they kept practicing. Keith was a fast learner. Lance had them leave it at kissing. Keith was too eager, in some ways. He was impulsive and hot headed. He wanted to give the Red Paladin a chance to really let everything sink in before things got way too carnal too fast. That didn’t mean he wasn’t starving for it himself, but he didn’t think he could handle it if they went further and Keith came to regret it later. Keith had resumed Pissy Cat behavior. He was insistent that it was fine, that he wanted to, but begrudgingly respected Lance’s point of view on the matter. 

Keith established his own ground rules, this thing that they would be doing was not going to get in the way of Voltron or the team. This was personal. This was private. Keith didn’t want to share it with the universe, not out of embarrassment, but out of wanting something all to himself. Lance could respect that too. It wasn’t really anyone’s business after all. If the team happened to find out, whatever, but he wasn’t about to send out announcements.

“I’m not gonna try anything, but can I… lay close to you?” Keith asked, as they laid side by side in the Blue Paladin’s messy bed. Keith nearly retreated at Lance’s stuttering chuckle. He thought Lance was making fun of him. 

“No, no no no no no. Come back here.” Lance openly laughed and tugged the smaller boy back down. “You can call it Spooning man. It’s what it is. Do you want to be the big spoon or the little spoon?”

“I know it’s… Spooning… but it’s stupid. Why is it called spooning anyway? What do spoons have to do with… this?” He snarked. 

“It’s because of how spoons fit together when they’re in a drawer, now for real. Big spoon is the back, little spoon is the front. Pick now before I pick for you.” Was Lance’s reply. Keith sputtered for a moment before blurting out. “Big!” Lance smiled and rolled them and got them situated. Keith wrapped his arms around Lance’s waist and pressed his nose into the crook of the taller boy’s neck.

“You smell nice.” Keith complimented, groggily, after a long while of just laying there, breathing in and out and listening to Lance do the same.

“Ah-hum.” Lance agreed sleepily. “Just don’t steal my bedding to smell it. That’s weird dude.”

“I wasn’t gonna.” Keith argued, but there was no heat in it. 

Keith was weird about a lot of things; smells, sounds, touches. It was alright though. Keith’s weird fit perfectly together with Lance’s own brand of weird. They were a good team. They really were. They fit together like two very odd spoons in a drawer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Follow me on tumblr for art and other Klance-tastic crap!](http://ladygreyfist.tumblr.com/)
> 
> \----------------
> 
> Some shitty doods!
> 
> [](http://s3.photobucket.com/user/Lily_Bell/media/klancesketchdump_1.png.html)


	2. It's Not a Race

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith is finally sick and tired of waiting. Lance is too but... but his first time sucked. He wants to make Keith's special.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some other characters appear in this chapter. I use they/them pronouns for Pidge. I can read Pidge as any gender or none but I wanted to make it somewhat neutral for you readers at home. 
> 
> I know this chapter is kind of smut heavy. I didn't know how it was going to play out til I wrote it so I'm going back and adding more tags. But if you see something here that triggers you and it didn't appear in the tags just let me know. I'll add the tag. I don't want to be insensitive to anyone’s needs, but sometimes I may not know something is a trigger until I'm told. 
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me! This one is a little long but I hope you enjoy it.

Lance didn’t realize that Keith becoming his kind of sort of boyfriend opened up a whole new world of teasing to him. Keith still stared, but now Lance would openly stare back. This had turned into little battles of will to see who could blink first. If left to nature Keith would win. There was an ongoing deliberation to determine if Lance’s wink, used to fluster Keith and make him look away, counted as a win for Lance or a forfeit. Hunk and Pidge had joined the debate. Hunk had picked up immediately on what change had occurred between the two previously hostile factions and in true Hunk fashion he had brought Pidge in. It was all okay though. Hunk was just happy that his friends were happy. Pidge’s only criticism was that the change only seemed to increase their ‘gross displays of longing.’

“I so totally win. He looked away with both eyes. I still had one eye open and on him.” Lance stated.

“Yeah, but he still had both eyes open when you closed one to wink.” Hunk proposed.

“Well, what carries more weight? How long the eyes are open or how long eye contact is maintained? We can’t really accurately answer who wins in that scenario without knowing how the variables are weighed.” Pidge supposed, tapping a pen against their cheek as they pondered.

“I don’t really care that much.” Keith supplied with a shrug.

“Yeah, cuz you’re losing.” Lance grinned wolfishly at Keith’s little glower at him.

“I’m not losing.” Keith started towards him, stalking. Ah yes. Back to being the Pissy Cat. “I’m still better at sparing than you. I can pin you in 30 seconds. Eye contact is a dumb competition.”

Lance smirked to hide his mild irritation. He was very fond of Keith but that didn’t mean he liked losing to him during training any less. He masked it though and beamed up into Keith’s smokey eyes. He dropped his voice to a deep, sticky-sweet note. “Why would I stop you from pinning me so quick? Skip the dance, go right to the foreplay.” He felt that lava swirling in his belly when Keith’s eyes popped and his face went as red as his lion. Hunk and Pidge both released twin groans. A symphony of disgust. Lance ignored them. Just grinned up as Keith stared at him like a fish dragged out of the water. Maybe it was cruel to flirt with Keith in such a direct way, but he loved how flustered the dark haired boy got whenever Lance was suggestive with him. Staring contests be damned. This was at least a game Lance could always win.

“Oh my god, get a room. Just not this room. Or any room I’ll ever go in.” Pidge groused, dragging them both out of their restored staring contest. “Sorry.” They apologized in unison. Lance didn’t worry about it too much, but Keith seemed lost in consideration as the rest of the people in the room shifted their attention to the project Hunk and Pidge were co-developing.

After dinner Lance met up with Keith in the training room. Shiro had set them to sparring with each other, to get Lance more comfortable with close quarters and to socialize Keith more. The Red Paladin didn’t seem phased by the comment of the earlier afternoon and proceeded to man handle Lance into submission, repeatedly, with the same ease he always had. He consented that Lance was improving, but the lanky boy simply didn’t see it. Laying on his back and trying to catch his breath Lance acknowledged Keith’s compliment with a simple thumbs up. Why did Keith never seem winded from sparing? Why did he seem most at ease with a sword in hand? It was just nutty. Like he was a machine doing what it was designed to do. Lance was a lover, not a fighter, so he just let Keith have this superiority over him. He was drawn from his wandering mind when a cold, space-juice-bag was plopped on his face.

“Come on. Get up and get a drink.” Keith ordered, standing over him and sipping his own space juice.

“I’m coming.” Lance whined, pushing himself up on his elbows. “One of these days I’ll get ahold of you and we’ll see how cocky you are when it’s your ass pinned to the mat.” 

Keith flushed crimson. It took a moment for Lance to process how his words could have had this effect. His eyes bulged. Keith looked like he wanted the floor to swallow him up.

“Oh. Dios mio.” Lance breathed, smiling like he just saw his first sunrise.

“Shut up!” Keith nearly wailed.

“Oh my god, no!” Lance laughed. “I will not!”

“Please Lance! Please just shut up!”

“You! You had a dirty thought! You had a gutter brained moment all on your own!”

“No I didn’t!” Keith refused to meet his eye.

“Keith! Tiger! Baby!”

“Don’t call me Baby! I hate that!”

“Oh but you like Tiger?” Lance chuckled. “I’m so proud of you! Welcome to the garbage bin!”

“No!” Keith sighed in defeat, dropping himself to lay next to Lance on the floor and hiding his face in both his hands. The Blue Paladin gently pulled at the shorter’s wrists, until his tomato face was exposed. He just smiled down at him, washing the mockery out of his voice. 

“It’s cool okay? It’s normal. I’m flattered that I star in your dirty thoughts. I should hope I do after all that work training you into being a decent kisser.” He winked, punctuating his statement with a smooch to Keith’s nose. 

The angry little Canadian relented a little, moving his wrists out of Lance’s grasp so he could just hold his hands. “I don’t want to be thinking about that stuff all the time. Isn’t it distracting?”

“You didn’t think about it much before?” Lance asked, incredulously. Keith just shrugged.

“I mean. I knew ‘of’ it. How it worked and stuff. But I just didn’t care. At first I didn’t even care when it came to you. I just wanted you to like me.”

“See, this right here is why I wanted to wait for that. I don’t want you to do shit just to get me to like you. I like you just fine.” Lance admonished, brow furrowing. Keith laced his fingers between Lance’s, staring at them instead of looking Lance in the eye. “That was only at first.” He corrected. “I really do want to try those things with you. Ugh. My brain’s almost as filthy as your’s. When can we do it?” He asked briskly. “For real. I really want you and I don’t want to wait longer than we have to.”

Lance’s eyes felt like they were going to fall out of his head. That was the most casually anyone could proposition someone else.

“You’ve never done that stuff with another person.” Lance stated. He really wanted to ask if Keith was sure about blowing his first time on Lance.

“So what?” Keith shrugged. “You got our kissing sorted out. Can't you figure this out too? I thought you said you were the love master.” He scoffed, making Lance flush.

“I am the love master, asshole. I was just concerned that your little virginal heart would want your first time to be special.” He glowered down, making his boyfriend chuckle.

“Than make it special.” Keith purred, wrapping his arms around Lance’s neck and pulling him down in for a kiss. It was restrained. The way a wild beast is restrained only because it chooses to be. Keith was getting better at leading when they made out. Lance just relaxed as this miraculous odd ball beneath him controlled his hungry urge to bite and devour him. When he finally let Lance go, their lips bruised, the taller boy had to stop him from getting up and crawling atop him.

“No, nonononono. Not on the floor of the training room.” He groused, pushing himself to his feet and pulling Keith up by the hand. “Your room or my room. But not here.” 

Keith looked like he was going to jump out of his sneakers. “Mine!” He answered quickly. So eager. He tried to pull Lance into another kiss but the cocky little Cuban was having none of that.

“Save it Bonito! We’ll have plenty of time for that in a bit. Head back to your room and wash up, I’ll meet you there.” Lance smirked, kissing the edge of Keith’s jaw at the shorter’s scowl.

Keith snatched at his wrist. “Aren’t you going back with me? Where are you going?” 

“To wash training off of me and to get some stuff. It’s not a race. I’ll meet you in your room in a little bit.” Keith released him and Lance allowed those smoke-hot eyes to bore through him until he was out of the room. 

He had a little planning to do while he was washing up and collecting supplies. His own first time had been rather terrible. Nothing but fumbling and making a fool of himself. Neither he nor his partner at the time had really enjoyed themselves. Neither knew what they were doing. But Keith had pretty much challenged him to be awesome, to make this a good memory for him. Lance really didn’t want to disappoint seeing as this was one of the few things he felt confident he was rather good at, even if no one believed his bragging. 

Even if things didn’t work out, he wanted to hold a permanent place in Keith’s memory, he wanted to be the litmus against which all other future forays were compared, not that he wanted there to be future forays for Keith. He wanted Keith all to himself as long as the universe would allow, in his own grossly primitive neanderthal way. He washed quickly, scrubbing his skin pink but trying his best not to use any scented soaps. He collected the supplies that they were going to need and subtly hid them in the pocket of his jacket before casually strolling through to corridors to Keith’s room.

He was far more relaxed now and he knocked on the door, quietly asking if he could come it. The door was opened before he could finish his sentence. Keith had been waiting it seemed. The shorter boy snatched him by the jacket and dragged him in, closing the doors behind him he bullied Lance up against the wall. 

“Omph! Glad to see you too.” Lance croaked as Keith’s hands wormed their way from his shoulder’s down to his hips and those battered lips found his again. Though the smacking sound of their kisses Lance picked up Keith’s muffled little bitches. Lance took too long. Lance didn’t need to wash in his own room. They could have washed together. Lance was over dressed it seemed compared to the towel Keith was wearing around his waist. The impulsive pilot apparently didn’t believe in unwrapping presents. 

“It’s not a race.” Lance reminded, this was becoming their mantra and it was dumb. “Slow down. I’m gonna get to you.” He promised, kissing up Keith’s jaw to breath against the shell of his ear. He delighted in the feel of the other shuddering. A damp mop of dark hair saturated the shoulder of his shirt when Keith leaned his head there, pressing his nose into Lance’s throat and inhaling deeply. Keith said that he liked the way Lance smelled, and seemed to enjoy breathing him in at any opportunity. Not pushing him away from his ministrations, Lance slowly guided them to the bed and managed to disengage Keith from his throat long enough to get him to sit.

“I’m gonna dress down and join you okay?” He prompted, giving Keith an opportunity to back out of this if he wanted. The Red Paladin just nodded once and took up staring again. Lance felt like a bug pinned under glass. What if he wasn’t what Keith expected? Not that Keith even knew what to expect, but still. Could someone eat you with their eyes? It sure felt like it. Keith’s hands were fisted in the bedding and he was positively quivering with the effort of not pouncing on Lance. His jacket and shirt hit the floor. Keith’s eyes gleamed. Predatory. Lance supposed this was a good sign. He felt more exposed than he ever had as Keith positively glared hate into the fly of his jeans, as though Lance were teasing him. “I’ve only got two hands. Be patient.” Lance chided the most impatient person he knew. 

“I’m trying but it’s hard.” Keith growled, not angrily. He just needed.

“I know you are but what am I?” Lance teased as he started in on his button and fly.

“Also hard, I hope.” Keith answered as though Lance had posed a legitimate question. 

Lance didn’t have high enough mental processes at the moment to explain the taunt. The blood felt like it was draining from his head like an hourglass. 

“Yeah. I am too.” he said softly, trying to get out of his jeans and boxer briefs at the same time with only mild hopping about. He stood, open and exposed for Keith’s inspecting gaze. “Tada?” He offered, using jazz hands to break some of the tension he felt. 

The only reply he got was a rumbling hum of approval, Keith’s eyes glassing over and his lips parting slightly as his breathing picked up. Lance felt like the lava in his belly had become a whirlpool, twisting rapidly and draining down. The feral beast before him made as though to reach out and pull him in closer but Lance clumsily side stepped.

“Nope. Nonono. A little tit for tat there, Tiger. I'm buck ass naked here. Your turn. Ditch the towel.” he was one hundred percent NOT going to be the only one exposed to the world before they began. Keith huffed in frustration, at all the waiting, and positive hurled the towel across the room and spread his arms out. It was a little bit like a tantrum but Lance knew he was quickly running out of patience. Even if it was in the process of having a fit, Keith putting himself on display like that was a rather tasty treat for the eyes. His skin was flushed nearly everywhere, and his breath was a rumble, causing his whole body to quiver. Lance allowed his eyes to explore as he himself had been inspected. Keith was more muscular than him, by quite a bit. He didn’t have Shiro’s chiseled definition, or the thick cords of muscle Hunk had hidden under his fluff. Lance was built for swimming, he was all legs after all, but Keith? Keith’s lines and forms, the grace of his shifting, ay dios. In a universe without a need for violence Keith would have been born to be a dancer. He had better pray to never meet Señora Sanchez because those gorgeous hips of his would be enrolled in her Salsa classes before he could even begin to protest. 

“What? Lance, you’re not speaking English.” Keith interrupted his little fantasy about taking Keith to Havana and showing him off on a dance floor. It was obvious that Lance had been just drinking him in a little too long, he must have vocalized some of that. Thank God he’d slipped back into Spanish.

“I said, I’m going to teach you to dance.” He lied, finally closing the distance between them and letting Keith take hold of him. 

“Please be a metaphor!” Keith nearly choked as he pulled Lance down on the bed. It was not graceful. Lance nearly smacked his head into the overhang of Keith’s bunk and he landed awkwardly on his side with his legs and ass still hanging off the bed. Keith was really no help. He didn’t assist Lance into scrabbling up on the bed at all. He was too focused on just TOUCHING him. By the time he finally had himself righted with his head on the pillow Keith’s digits had already roamed every inch of his throat and shoulders, snaked down his arms, leapt from his fingertips to the V of his hips, and the fingers of his pale hands fanned wide as they washed up his brown stomach to his chest. It was like seafoam breaking on sand. That should have made Lance home sick but instead it just felt like home. 

He shook the haze from his head. He was supposed to lead but here he was, comfortably giving into his own preferences and leaving Keith to waiver and figure things out by himself. “Keith. Lay down too.” He commanded, taking a free hand and giving his impatient boyfriend a caress from jawline to the center of his chest. He pushed a little to make his point and navigated the hungry little lion to laying down instead. Keith’s hands never stopped exploring anything he could get ahold of. He took a harsh fistful of Lance’s hair, right at the scruff of his neck and dragged him down into a kiss. Lance had been too cruel, making him wait and drawing this out so long. Keith had lost all but the barest shreds of his self control. The kiss wasn’t soft and gentle, but voracious. Lance felt like his brain was going to turn to mush. A few weeks ago Keith had no idea what to do with his tongue while kissing, now he was a goddamn master. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) breathing was still a very trendy thing so they absolutely had to separate at some point and when that occurred Keith was still not ready to release his prey. He simply moved his focus to licking and nipping violent purple marks into Lance’s neck, his hands finally found a territory of their own, marking up Lance’s back with his short fingernails. Lance’s own fumbled to find a good place to settle on Keith, but the less experienced man was just so sensitive to touch. Everywhere seemed to leave him torn between squirming away and pushing into the touch. That was until Lance managed to wriggle one under Keith’s neck and rest another on his hip, stabilizing him and keeping him from twisting them both right off the bed. This also had the unintentional but rather convenient side effect of lining their hips together when Lance was finally ready to lay his weight down on the other.

The sudden sensation of their groins pressed together seemed to be the only thing that could shake Keith out of his dedication to owning every inch of Lance’s throat. Keith was the Red Paladin because he was impulsive and let instinct rule. As soon as his body registered the pressure of Lance’s weight instinct took over. His breaths came in shuddering gasps as his hips began to buck erratically, trying to keep his tragically ignored member lined up with Lance’s. He couldn’t get a decent rhythm on instinct alone however and in his frustration he stopped and scrubbed at his face with his hands.

“This sucks.” He groaned, “Help me.” 

Lance once again had to shake his head to disperse the feeling of his brain turning to stuffed animal filling. “Yeah. Yeah Tiger. Just catch your breath for a minute. I’ll be right back.” He shifted to get up. Keith looked like he’d been smacked across the mouth. 

“Wh-Where are you going? Did- Did it not feel good? I can try again!” He stumbled over his words, staring worriedly into Lance’s back as his attenuated paramor was rummaging around in the pockets of his green jacket. 

“I’m not going anywhere.” Lance snorted. “You felt awesome. 11/10, will definitely do again. I’m just getting some of those supplies I mentioned earlier. I should have already had them. You just got me all worked up.” He grinned over at the fidgeting tangle of limbs on the bed. Keith had actually been worried about rejection? That he’d not performed well enough to keep Lance’s attention? That was so absitively posolutely the dumbest thing he’d ever thought Keith could think. He’d had nearly all of Lance’s attention since their kiss in the training room. A little fruitless humping hadn’t done anything to diminish the raging hard on he had. No sirree. He wanted to get back to Keith as soon as possible but science confirmed for him the ancient rumor that, no, you actually can’t run with a boner. Or at least it’s weird as fuck. 

He managed to get back to the bed with minimum foolishness. Lance rewarded the desperate cavalier for his patience by massaging one of his thighs from knee to hip. “Okay, Bonito. You were great, but I’ve got some stuff to make it feel a little better.” He smiled wiggling the tube of lube and the wrapped condoms in front of him. Keith’s eyes popped and he sank back into the bedding. “I’m- I’m not sure I’m ready for that!” The Red Paladin stammered. 

It took Lance a second to realize what Keith could have meant. He’d been fired up on all cylinders only a minute ago. “OH! Oh, no! Nonononononono!” He shook his head and waved his free hand rapidly. “Haha. No. Keith. We weren’t going to do THAT today. Ain’t nothing going inside ANYBODY yet. That’s like, intermediate and up. No, no. We’re starting safely with some novice stuff. This stuff is fun even with the novice stuff.” He grinned, rubbing Keith’s thigh again to sooth him a bit. 

Keith still looked skeptical. “We’re both men, why do we need the condom? We can’t get pregnant or anything.” He inquired, pushing himself up on his elbows so he could watch and learn as Lance carefully ripped open the foil wrapper.

“It’s just a good habit to be into. It doesn’t matter that we’re both guys. They don’t just protect against pregnancy you know. Didn’t you ever take any sex ed classes? Where they show THE slide show? I did. I’m scarred for life. You’ve never done anything with anyone and frankly, Tiger, you don’t know where I’ve been. I’m nearly 100% sure I’m clean. I didn’t take any chances. But it’s way better to be safe than sorry. Here, I got you one too so you can get used to how they feel.” Lance could not believe that Keith could be that ignorant, but then again he couldn’t have been a much better student in high school than he was at the Garrison. It’s not that Keith was unintelligent, it was just that if a topic didn’t relate to one of his interests he may not give it any more of his attention than necessary. He had a brilliant mind. He could remember some of the most specific shit, it was incredible, but it was like he chose not to waste memory space on anything he didn’t think he’d use again in the immediate future. With him having given so little of a fuck about fucking it was likely that he had probably either skipped that day or spent the entire lesson on safe, reasonable sex lost somewhere in his mind. Lance could see where that would be perfectly typical Keith-behavior. He was just glad that he at least thought to get this fledgling pervert up to date on how to keep his ass safe as well as being glad for planning ahead the night they snuck out of the Garrison. He’d been hoping for a hook up and he never left it up to chance. He was a gentleman, at least he thought he was, and so it was important to have his own condoms and lube.

What Lance didn’t expect was for Keith to be so eager to be taught how to do these things, without having to rely on Lance to show him. Keith was so enthused to take charge, he just needed to be shown how once. Lance was glad once was all he tended to need. Keith could obliterate his brain with how creative he could be once he’d mastered it himself. Keith had looked as though he’d wanted to scrunch his eyes shut and let his head lull when Lance slowly helped him with the condom, but he soldiered through, keeping his eyes open to observe; all because he’d conveyed that he wanted them to do it for each other. While Keith had been a little worse, Lance had not been able to assist Keith without his own hands trembling too. They had spend so much time geared up and ready to go. It was nearly exhausting being aroused for this long and not doing a goddamn thing about it! Lance knew that once they were situated it wouldn’t be long for either of them, but he figured Keith would probably lose his mind if it happened any other way.

Once they were hermetically sealed Lance also introduced the lubricant, making sure to warn Keith that chapped-dick was actually real. It did actually suck. And that if anything could be done to prevent it, then those measures should be taken. Keith had nodded through and absorbed the lesson with as much grace as his grumpy little Canadian heart could muster, but that sour puss was flooded with relief when Lance fit their hips together again and began to stroke them together. He couldn’t resist just a little teasing though, so he began torturously slow. Up. Then down. Feather light.

“Oh my god, why?” Keith whined, actually fucking whined. “You’re such! Oh my god no don't slow down, what the fuck? You’re such an asshole!” 

“I could be a real asshole and stop all together?” He smirked, trying to keep himself steady.

“No! I will literally strangle you I swear!” Keith snarled, shivering and close, despite how leisurely Lance was being with their pace. 

“Maybe I just will-” Lance had not been able to complete the idea when Keith, very forcefully flipped their positions, pinning Lance down to the mattress and sitting on his legs. This probably should have frightened Lance, not made him even hornier, but he’d already consented to being a depraved pervert so there was no point in having a crisis over it. 

“I think I got the hang of this.” Keith huffed, bracing himself with one hand pressed into the mattress at the side of Lance’s head, the other wrapping around them together and delivering a brutal pace. 

Lance had tried so hard to remain clear headed, focused, in control so he could make sure that their first time didn’t suck. His last clear thought before surrendering his mind, just allowing his body to automatically enjoy Keith’s body, was how this had actually turned out rather awkward and Keith would probably remember his first time being as shitty as Lance remembered his own. He’d have maybe felt guiltier about it had all of his faculties not been reduced to figuring out how much of Keith he could caress at once or how many endearments he could attach to the man whose fist he was currently fucking. Keith looked so sinful, leaning over, his face curtained by any strand of his dark hair not trying to cling to his sweat soaked face. Lance was pretty sure he’d run out of all the pet names he knew in English or Spanish and had moved on to made up ones by the time Keith’s bracing arm gave out. Keith prevented himself from body-checking Lance on his way down, but didn’t bother pushing himself back up. He buried his nose in Lance’s neck, released their swollen pricks and just fisted his fingers in Lance’s hair, letting the rhythm of their hips carry them to the edge. Lance felt Keith’s teeth breaking the skin of his shoulder as they both pitched over. His every nerve was electrified for pleasure, it was all he could sense.

When he’d finally been able to blink the stars from his eyes he was dimly aware that his Bonito, his Tiger, was laid out atop him like a ragdoll. “Please. Don’t say. You have a. Seizure condition.” he heard his own voice pant. Oh yeah. Breathing. Right. Breathing was very trendy. Keith stirred, and disengaged himself so he could lay flat on his side beside Lance.

“I think. I think I might have died for a minute.” Keith confessed, out of breath. Lance’s laugh sounded more like a sigh.

“I think that’s what the French call it. Hey, they speak French in Canada. Is it?” 

“I don’t. Fucking know.” Keith laughed a little himself, unable to believe that Lance could process something like that just after orgasm. “I’m from Saskatchewan.” 

“And that’s why Regina rhymes with fun.” Lance stated, sending them both into a fit of giggles. They were probably a little oxygen deprived. It was okay. God was everything so, so very okay.

“Do you feel good?” Lance eventually asked when they had managed to contain themselves and discard the spent condoms.

“I feel so much better.” Keith affirmed. “I was going nuts. Now I just feel tired.” 

“So, good first time?” Lance just wanted to hear it. Wanted to know he’d done well and that Keith would be satisfied with this, with him. He really didn’t think his heart could bear being a disappointment here.

“Very good. You dragged it out. But other than that, 11/10. Will definitely do again.” He smiled, caressing a hand from Lance’s cheek down to his shoulder, but pulling his hand back suddenly, his fingers coming back sticky and red. “Shit! Shit Lance I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Oh god I bit you bad.” He fretted, his thick brows knitting together. The endorphins were still flooding Lance’s body so he still barely felt it. 

“It’s okay.” He attempted to sooth, but Keith was not having any of it. 

“I fucking bit you!” He snarled. “People don’t bite people!”

“Yeah they do. Man, you were just really in the moment. It’s okay. I’m not hurt. I like it rough. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Stop mothering me, god, I got a… well… a mom for that.” Lance huffed, swatting Keith’s probing fingers away as he got out of the bed.

“Are you leaving?” Keith asked, something a little fragile in his voice.

“I’m just going to use your bathroom to clean up my neck. No! No, do not get up and try to help me. I got this. This isn’t my first love bite.” He was not going to tell him this was the first time he’d received an actual bite, rather than a nip. “You stay right there. In fact, I want you right there and ready for a spooning when I get back. You blew my fucking mind, Tiger. I don’t think my legs could get me back to my room if I wanted them too. Can I crash with you tonight?” He grinned, hoping that Keith could pick up the suggestive comment. 

“Uh, yeah.” Was the answer. Keith hadn’t gotten it, it seemed. That was okay though. Lance washed his shoulder off and applied some kind of alien antibacterial goo to the bite. (It really wasn’t that bad. The punctures were small. They just bled a lot.) He smack a bandage on it, just to keep the goo from rubbing off in Keith bedding and made the arduous journey back on his unstable legs. 

Keith was laying on his side, staring unblinkly at the bathroom door. Once Lance exited those eyes followed him until he flopped beside the pensive man laying there. Lance decided to shatter that worried gaze by twisting his fingers in Keith’s damp locks and giving him a chaste kiss. “Big or little spoon?” he whispered against those cherry red, battered lips. 

Keith’s reply was whispered back. Lance usually left the spooning choice up to Keith. He never knew what variables the oddball considered to help him make his choice. He was the big spoon just about as often as he was the small. Sometimes it was harder for him to decide than others. It seemed the big spoon was most desirable for this occasion. Lance was longer so he had to tuck up his legs a little but it was so worth the feeling of Keith twisting around him, the pressure of his arms possessively encircling him, as well as the sensation of Keith’s breath against his bandaged shoulder drinking in the smell there like he was parched for it. 

This was the first time he’d also elected to sleep the whole night there and the Red Paladin seemed equally as enthused to have his lover wrapped up in the nest of his bed as he had for their earlier shenanigans.

“Can I keep you?” Keith whispered, his lips and breath ghosting against Lance’s shoulder. The goose bumps that prickled over his flesh was not due to that breath alone. The whisper had almost been reverent. Lance was sure it was probably just the post coitus talking but he really hoped Keith was sincere about that.

Lance brought one of those pale hands up to his face, to kiss, tenderly, each digit. “Yeah. You can keep me so long as you want me. Can I keep you back?” The question was a little broken as he hadn’t wanted to stop peppering those kisses to Keith’s fingertips.

“I’d like you to.” Was Keith’s reply, a smile pressing into Lance's back as the arms around him squeezed possessively.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Follow me on tumblr for art and other Klance-tastic crap!](http://ladygreyfist.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> \-------------------------------------------------------
> 
> BEHOLD MY SINS!!!
> 
> [](http://s3.photobucket.com/user/Lily_Bell/media/itsnotaracefinalcopy.png.html)


	3. Does it Really Matter?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance noticed something on Balmera. Thankfully Keith didn't really pay much attention to it. But Lance doesn't think he should mention what he saw. It could mean something that might come across as unpleasant. He had to be wrong... he just had to... but if he wasn't? Well, would that really change anything?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter was long and smutty, here's a short, fluffy chapter for ya'll.

Lance had suspected Keith was a little different from most people for a while. He tried to be as accommodating as possible, at least as best he could. He was not an expert in things like that. One autistic cousin does not make one prepared for looking out for the needs of someone who may not even be autistic. 

Or someone who may not necessarily be human.

That little thought had wiggled into his brain and laid eggs back on the Balmera, when Keith had casually closed the hanger door with his own hand. There had been no one else in the room to see and Keith, bless his unobservant little heart, had seemed to let it slip from his mind with all the commotion that followed. The thing that bothered Lance was that hanger had to require authorization to open and close, hence the hand pad, but they always needed either Shiro’s hand or a Galra Droid’s hand to operate things like that. How could Keith have operated it organically? If no human could interact with Galra Tech organically didn’t that mean there could only be one explanation? God part of him hoped he was wrong. There had to be another perfectly logical option he was grazing past on his way to ‘my boyfriend’s an alien and he’s probably going to lay eggs in my stomach.’ Another person, ideally a rational one like Hunk or Shiro, could probably put that concern to rest. But there was no way he was going to let that one slip out to anyone. He didn’t want to be planting seeds of mistrust in their team. Not over something this stupid. Not over something he had to be so wrong about. The idea of voicing the suspicion sounded as repellent to him as the idea of winding up and back handing Keith. No. That thought was going to fester inside his own brain and his alone. 

That fungal little thought tended to sprout in the front of his mind late at night. In the dark. When he was sandwiched between Keith and the wall on the other side of the bunk. Keith being the little spoon, fast asleep, gripping onto Lance’s arms around him like they were the only thing anchoring him to this world. Did Keith’s breath come in faster than a normal sleeping person? Did Keith’s skin feel hotter than the usual bed mate? He slipped a hand out of the shorter man’s hold and pressed it against the chest that would have been pale if not for all the kiss marks he’d left there. Should a sleeping person’s heart beat at that speed? It was slower than Lance’s wakeful rate but was it as slow as the typical sleeping heart rate? He was pulled from his panicked pondering by his Tiger shifting, trying to stretch out a little. Keith released a small sound, found Lance’s hands, returned them where they belonged and the asshole fucking smiled in his sleep. The picture of a little Korean-Canadian cherub. The little bastard. He looked so at peace when he let himself sleep soundly. And why was that? Because he trusted Lance. He trusted Lance would never harm him. Lance felt so guilty for having been trying to inspect him like this. If his suspicion was right, would that change anything? Could he stop caring about this oblivious Pissy Cat? 

He pressed his nose into the long dark locks he used to make fun of and breathed in deeply. He wasn’t as moved by scent as Keith was, but that didn’t mean he didn’t also feel comforted by the smell. He wrapped his arms tighter. No. No it wouldn’t change a goddamn thing. Keith was Keith. He didn’t get innuendos, he couldn’t read facial expressions, he threw little hissy fits, he had no patience, he rushed into things without thinking, he grabbed and growled and possessed…

… 

…

He had said the words ‘I love you’ first. He’d said them with the blunt, blatant certainty of fact. He’d looked down into Lance’s eyes and delivered that emotional sucker punch with the same voice he may have used to say that the sky was blue, or that water was wet. Keith stored every one of their kisses in his memory, and could call them up with the same accuracy that he could memories of every fight he’d been in. He could recite what he learned from each experience. His perfect thick brows furrowed when he struggled to put into words the complexity of his senses; when he tried to describe the “Lance’s Neck” smell in comparison to the “Lance’s Stomach” taste. Yeah. Apparently every part of him smelled and tasted different to Keith! And the little psycho had favorites! Then there was every little thing that just built the walls that protected Keith in his heart from dangerous revelations. Keith biting him, owning him. Keith having the most high pitched, sudden, cute sneeze. How his nose scrunched up right before he got impatient and demanding. How he rolled and stretched when he first started to wake up. How touch was so reaffirming for them both. The face he made, his eyes rolled back and his jaw slack, when Lance brought him to the edge. The rough sound of his breathing when he shoved Lance over it too. How he had given Lance more bruises from kisses and nips on his body now than he gained in his entire lifetime as a middle child being banged around between older and younger siblings. Oh, and Keith made him feel like the center of the universe and all he had to do was just fucking be there and not abuse that trust. This wasn’t just some casual fun between two friend. Lance had it bad. When Keith said he wanted to keep Lance the Blue Paladin hadn’t known how thoroughly he would, and with no effort. 

He pulled Keith to his chest and rocked them gently. “God I love you.” He whispered into Keith’s hair. “I love you so much it fucking hurts. And you don’t even know it. You fucking perfect idiot.” He buried his face in the fucking mullet and continued his vows, albeit now in Spanish. Maybe these reverent little prayers would mean more in his mother tongue? Maybe he didn’t want Keith to know what he was promising if he woke up. He promised that if Keith were not human he’d stay. He’d still want to kiss and touch and tease each other both with playful jabs in front of their friends and breathless chuckles between kisses in private. 

Just as he was figuring out how he could promise the sun, moon, and stars and still deliver Keith shifted, groggily looking at him.

“Laaance?” He slurred. “Whassit? Yer talkin’ Cuban?” Yes, because all Spanish is Cuban at what seems like four in the morning. Keith’s voice was just the right kind of rough and bleary. God why was he so fucking perfect when he was all sleepy-drunk?

“Huh? Oh, sorry Tiger. I was kind of talking in my sleep.” He lied through his goddamn teeth. “Go back to sleep or you’ll be a moodier bitch than usual tomorrow.” He teased.

“Fffffuck you.” Keith breathed, rolling so they were no longer spooning, but so he could lay atop his paramor and snuffle at Lance’s collar bone. “Smell so good. You smell even better last few days. Wanna eat it. Wanna roll in it.” The Red Paladin groggily confessed. Keith liked to wake up early because he didn’t wake up well. He liked having a little extra time before he had to deal with people. It would take him a while to shake off the fogginess. He could be really bitchy if pestered or questioned in this state. However, if left alone to do what he wanted this state was rather endearing because he was at his most natural. He gave negative fucks about what people thought. His filter didn’t develop until after about twenty minutes, or a cup of Leilbe, which was the Altean way-too-sweet-equivalent to coffee. He said the weirdest, cutest shit that he would never say or admit to when fully awake. This was the state he’d been in when he’d told Lance that he had a ‘pretty dick’. Who fucking tells someone that they’ve got a pretty dick? Fucking sleepy-drunk Keith, that’s who. 

“I told you, stealing my clothes or bedding is weird dude.” Lance chuckled as he navigated Keith back into their spooning position.

“You sleep here. Naked. Is my bedding. I can… I can roll in it if I want. Fuck you.” Keith huffed, his eyes fully closed and starting to accept sleep again, but he did a futile attempt to rock his own bare skin into the sheets. Just to fucking make his point. It was so stupid. Lance just wanted to kiss him but he’d start to really wake up if he did. With a gust of a sigh Keith slipped right back into sound sleep, lips parted slightly and his chest evenly rising and falling. Lance didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry. This impossible, wonderful idiot was his. Fuck it. Lance would still keep the Balmera Incident to himself, he wouldn’t tell anyone. He’d defend Keith’s belonging to Earth to his fucking dying breath. So there was maybe a chance that Keith’s absentee parents may have been a little more foreign than the Red Paladin assumed, it didn’t matter. It’s where Keith had been raised. Where Keith had been taught the things that made him Keith. Who gave a fuck what his parents were? It didn’t matter to Lance. Maybe it would matter to Keith, but there was no point in hurting his boyfriend by questioning his humanity to his face. Lance piloted a giant blue robotic lion in space with an alien princess and subsided primarily on food-goo. He could do weird. He could do whatever kind of weird Keith wanted to throw at him. One time they had been rivals and Lance would have never let Keith beat him at something. He would not be beaten back from this over something as silly as a little bit of alien dick. He would be the best boyfriend material Earth could offer! 

Lance dozed off, contented and certain he’d be the very best Earthling boyfriend he could be…

So long as there was a strict ‘no laying eggs in your human boyfriend’s belly’ agreement. Just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Follow me on tumblr for art and other Klance-tastic crap!](http://ladygreyfist.tumblr.com/)


	4. Spaced Out on Sensation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith wants to impress Lance, but he has a hard time staying focused. It feels like every day his brain gets cloudier and cloudier when it comes to Lance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooh a POV switch. I've written everything from Lance’s perspective up til now but I didn't want to leave Keith as a passive character in his own romance.

Having trouble with socializing did not make one stupid. Far from it. Keith didn’t always see himself as the smartest person around but he knew he wasn’t dumb by a long shot. He was well aware he was being accommodated.

All of Lance’s perfumed soaps, stuff that he had loved to wash with, had been binned long ago. Lance said he didn’t want to accidentally use them. Lance made sure to dim the lights of his room a little whenever Keith spent a lot of time in there with him. Keith didn’t NEED dimmer lights, but it was just so much more comfortable and… well… cozy. That beanpole did it without even being asked, as though it was just second nature to do things for him.

There were other things Lance did for him too, things that made molten steel rush through his veins and sear at his face. Lance let him decide nearly everything in bed, all except that silly condom thing. He was going to stuff Lance into one of those healing pods, have Coran give him a full body scan, and if he came back clean all those stupid, colorful little rubbers were just going to ‘go missing.’ Keith would make sure of that. And if that fantasy also involved dragging Lance back to his room by the scruff of the neck and riding him bareback? Eh. What was he thinking about? It was getting harder to stay focused, recently, once his brain got on the topic of fucking Lance. This had become especially hard since Lance’s smell had just recently started to get even better, to the point where he could taste Lance’s skin on his tongue just by getting a good whiff of that sweet spot on the crook of his neck or that intoxicating spot right behind Lance’s ear… shit. Doing it again. What the fuck was he thinking about? Oh right, the things that Lance did for him.

Lance never complained about Keith’s biting or scratching him, even though Keith sometimes felt guilty once he was cool headed again. Lance refused to let him apologize for it. He seemed to love those marks. Keith was pretty sure Lance was insane as well as mouthy. How could he like to be roughed up so much? How could he stare at Keith with fucking worship in those goddamn eyes!? How did he manage eyes so blue? They were so devastating in that bronzed face. When they had their staring contests Keith felt like there where tidal waves roaring behind those eyes, threatening to wash him away. He was sure if he stared into them long enough he would see the answer to any question he had, but like the ocean (that he’d never actually visited) he could stare and stare at those swirling waves and never be able to understand what was behind the depths of them. He wanted to. God he wanted to. He wanted to understand the language of Lance’s face, his body, his hands and those soul shattering eyes! Sadly, body language was just as foreign to his eyes as Lance’s soft, breathy first language was to his ears.

Lance did for him, Lance made room for him, changed for him, and created a safe place for him to not worry about being ‘better’ or being ‘normal.’ When it was just himself and Lance he was just himself... plus Lance. No pressure. That was such an amazingly new and liberating feeling. He’d never really known he could just be himself around others. There was always the expectation of compliance, of having to rationalize what seemed like perfectly reasonable reactions to everything ! He didn’t have to explain himself to Lance. Sure, every once in awhile Lance would ask him about those reactions, but it wasn’t to make him feel like the reactions weren’t valid. Lance wanted to understand Keith, not force Keith to understand him. It was all the pleasure he’d had of living alone but… not alone. He wanted to keep this forever. He wanted to keep Lance, his safe place, his security. He knew right down to his marrow that the first mother fucker who tried anything on Lance would become a mysterious stink hidden away somewhere. One doesn’t carry around a knife longer than one’s own hand and not know how to damn well use it.

Keith forced his brain away from that thought quickly. It was making his hackles rise and if he lingered there too long he would need to go to the training room and work some shit out on a dummy. The point, he scolded his brain, of this whole process of thought was to figure out something that he could DO for Lance. And not bedroom stuff. That kind of stuff didn’t count for things like this.

He spent a good hour just pacing circles around the empty common room, having pulled the tongue of his jacket’s zipper up near his lapel, he kept one arm tightly crossed about his chest, while the hand of the other dragged the tongue up and down the track. The room was completely silent aside from the sound of his shoes and the subtle zzzp, zzzp, zzzp. It felt good, to just repeat that small motion and listen to that little sound. Usually it helped keep him focused, even if it was kind of hard to focus today. He didn’t like to do it in front of other people. If he felt he needed to and there was someone else in the room he’d do something quiet, like rubbing his thumb against the seam on his fingerless gloves. He loved those gloves. Constant pressure and a good texture. But right now he was alone and he could… fidget… anyway he wanted. Lance called it ‘stimming’ which he said was short form of ‘self stimulating’ but Keith didn’t like to call it that. No one who’d ever noticed his fidgets called it stimming before. Even from his earliest memories in the group home, well meaning nurses and caregivers had sweetly called him a ‘fidget’. Some were nice about his touch-rituals. Some not so much. (Mrs. Schuster could rot in hell, having made him hold that awful velvet bag until he wanted to cry from frustration. She wouldn’t listen to him! It was like she couldn’t even hear him when he said that touching the velvet made an awful sound! Like she didn’t hear it too! Fucking bitch.) He’d quickly learned that biting at the skin on his lip or picking at his cuticles often got him a scolding, or anything that was noisy irritated others. But his hands could be quiet. He hadn’t owned his gloves when he was living there. He often just traced the seam of his jeans at his hip or rubbed a coin in his pocket, just something quiet to keep him grounded when his brain felt like it wanted to fly at 120 kilometers a hour.

He paced and zipped and paced and zipped for probably another forty minutes before the doors to the common room shooshed open. He released his zipper immediately. ‘Time for Quiet Hands.’ Ms. Carmicheal’s Newfinese accent sing-songed in his memory. He felt the urge to press his palms to his thighs by rhote. He didn’t. He was proud of himself for breaking that indoctrination out of himself. Hunk was coming in, rubbing his hair with a small towel.

“Oh. Hey Keith.” The gentle giant greeted. “What’cha doin’?” Keith wondered if he shouldn’t have placed one of those Altea brain-teaser puzzles out to make it look like he had been doing something other than getting lost in his brain. Not that it would matter. Lying to Hunk was so hard.

“Just thinking.” He said as Hunk flopped down on one of the sofas and picked up one of said three dimensional puzzles from a box beside it and started fingering it all over, Keith recognized it as one of the more complicated ones.

“Thinkin’s good I guess. I’ve been thinkin’ about trying out some of those herbs we got from Panorax 6. They smell kinda… garlic-y… might be able to pull off garlic knots if I can also figure out butter.” He grinned, unlocking a piece of the puzzle after only a few seconds, twisting the rest of the puzzle gently in his big hands and looking at it absentmindedly. Hunk was so smart, but not in an intimidating way. People treated him like he was dim witted or slow. Keith couldn’t understand why. The guy was the same age as himself and Lance, yet he already had an degree in engineering from a college in American Samoa. He didn’t brag about how, like Pidge, he’d also graduated from High School super early. The only reason he hadn’t gone to the Garrison early, like Pidge, was simply that his mother wasn’t ready for him to live so far away at his age. She wanted him to start the Garrison at the same age as other, freshly graduated kids. So he’d filled the gap by getting a mother fucking bachelor’s degree in only three years. The only thing that had held him back was that he was sheltered, silly, and just wanted to believe the best in everyone. Hunk was too good a person for most people. Keith was glad that Lance had a best friend like Hunk.

Oh!

OH!

Hunk was Lance’s best friend!

Hunk had been Lance’s roommate at the Garrison since they enrolled! He’d had an entire year with Lance up his ass and listening to his nonsense! Thank goodness Hunk was a patient person and had that brilliant brain! Keith could bet his left glove that Hunk would be able to give him a great idea! A people-person kind of an idea! Holy shit this was going to be great! He was going to be so smooth and so romantic! Lance was going to just fucking melt!

“HUNK!” He really didn’t mean to shout. He didn’t know it was going to come out like that. He just couldn’t contain how excited he was.

“OHMYGODWHAT!?” the Samoan shrilled, the puzzle and its pieces flying from his hands in his surprise. “WHAT?”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.” Keith apologized, wincing as Hunk patted his chest over his heart. He knew that sign.

“Dude, don’t do that man! You scared the fudgy frog out of me!” Hunk sighed. The sentence shouldn’t have made sense, but Keith had learned a while back that Hunk didn’t curse and used other words to replace them.  
“Sorry. I just. I wanted to ask you something.” He was not nervous. He was not nervous. Hunk wouldn’t tease him. Hunk could be trusted. He’d take this seriously.

“Oh no, that’s not an anxiety inducing sentence right there. No, sure. Not at all.” Hunk replied, looking around for the scattered pieces of the puzzle. Oh that was good. Hunk didn’t think being asked random questions was uncomfortable? Keith did. He’d log that knowledge away so the next time he had an odd question he’d bring it to Hunk.

“I have a question about Lance.” Keith began. Leave the zipper alone. Quiet-Hands. He couldn’t be still. His right hand rubbed at the seams of the glove on his left.

“Oh boy, here we go. What’d he do now?” Hunk smiled, expectantly.

“He makes me feel safe. All the time. He couldn’t win in a fist fight if his life depended on it, I know that, but I still feel that way when I’m around him. He’s like. Like cinnamon and sugar, or orange peels, or… or I don’t know. But he threw away all his soap because it hurts my nose… and… he just… he does things for me just to make me feel comfortable, things that he doesn’t really have to do. They’re things I wouldn’t have even thought to ask him to do and… I wanna do something for him but I just don’t know what would be good, because if it sounds good to me it might not make sense to him because he’s NORMAL.” Keith glowered at the floor, rubbing at the leather of his glove, not even trying to be subtle anymore, he couldn’t meet Hunk’s eyes. It made him queasy knowing that Hunk was staring at him.

“Whoa. That is NOT what I was expecting. Have you tried telling him what you just told me? I’m sure his ego would appreciate getting compared to cinnamon and sugar.”

Keith shook his head. “No, I don’t want to just say thank you. I want to DO something. Lance says AND does things. I want to do something for him as well. You’re his best friend, what does he like?”

“Oh boy, um. I don’t think I want to contemplate that question. Wait, you don’t mean bedroom stuff right? Because, listen, Lance is my best friend, but I saw his butt once when I walked in on him in the shower and frankly I’m really far away from my family therapist sooooo…”

“No! God why would I ask you about bedrooms stuff for my boyfriend? That’s nasty!” Keith shrieked.

“I’m not nasty! Lance is nasty! I just, safely mind you, assume that when he’s involved the nasty just follows.”

“Okay, no. Nothing nasty! I mean just totally tame shit. What is something I can do that he’ll appreciate?” Keith huffed, the tension was broken and he was able to return to meeting Hunk’s eye without any fidgeting.

Hunk relaxed and sunk into the sofa a bit. Looking up at the ceiling as he pondered. “I can think of a lot of things Lance likes. I mean. Off the top of my head it’s not hard. But thinking of something to do… And it’s not me. It’s something that YOU want to do, so it has to make sense that it’s something that you WOULD do. It’d just be weird if you did something I’D do.” Hunk prattled in his usual too-fast way. Keith just tried to patiently listen. “I think where we need to start is not think about doing, but think about things YOU’VE noticed that he likes and then brainstorming how you can do something with it. So, little brain game. What is something that YOU noticed Lance likes?” Hunk questioned amicably.

Keith peered down at his shoes as he thought about it. Lance spent a lot of non-training time doing maintenance work with Coran, that’s what he was doing this very minute after al. But it wasn’t really something he liked to do, just something he was suited for and didn’t mind doing once Coran had roped him into it enough. Lance liked his personal hygiene. He washed himself every single day at least once, more than once if he got dirty or sweaty. But he couldn’t really brainstorm from here. Though he’d been lucky enough that Lance had left the bathroom door a crack the other day and Keith had woken to hear him singing in there as he was getting ready for his morning.

He knew it was probably bad of him, but he had been curious. Lance didn’t sing in front of other people, not in a meaningful way anyway. He liked to scream something about wrecking balls over the com while they trained but Keith suspected he was trying to intentionally sound bad. Lance, when he thought he was alone, was a fairly decent singer. Keith had peeked through the door as Lance, in his towel, stood in front of the mirror. For someone who was supposed to be washing their face he spent a lot of the time in there dancing. Keith had leaned against the wall as he watched and listened to Lance. The song was an older one, Keith thought, probably older than them both. He didn’t think it would have normally been his own taste, but then again he had very little interest in music, so he supposed he couldn’t claim to have a taste.

The words though, the way Lance said them, didn’t sound like some kind of generic love song. He listened and part of him wanted it to be about THEM. Lance sung about a hunger that kept him awake at night, wondering if a particular person was the answer. That he was anticipating them. That he was frightened of being alone in the dark, that he needed a Guardian Angel. Keith may not believe in angels but Lance did, and he’d be more than happy to be that if Lance really wanted it. The song begged for the singer to be taken home and someone named Ronnie sang about being someone’s baby. Ugh. He’d do just about anything for Lance, but he hated being called Baby. He was not a fucking baby. Tiger was so much better. He still hadn’t asked what Bonito was. There was another song Lance liked to sing, about Bonito. Keith didn’t understand any of the words to it because they were Spanish but he had pretended to sleep, with one eye a crack, and watched Lance dance around to get dressed.

“Lance likes to dance.” Keith vocalized. He supposed he must. He’d looked like he was enjoying himself.

“There you go. Good start. Yeah. Lance does like to dance. His mom teaches dance classes so he’s been dancing since he was a kid.” Hunk supplied. “He’s not a bad dancer, maybe you could dance with him? I bet he’d like that.”

“I don’t know how to dance… At all.” Keith deadpanned, ready to abandon that option.

“Have you ever tried?” Hunk asked, grinning and crossing his arms.

“... No.”

“Okay, look. You don’t need to know how. How about you let him teach you? Then, it’s kind of something special. He teaches you how to mambo, you teach him how to kung fu fight.”

“I don’t know kung fu. I barely even know Karate! I stopped going to lessons after my orange belt… they decided it wasn’t helping me to learn discipline.”

“It’s… it’s from a song dude, relax. Don’t overthink it. Refocus. Lance could teach you to dance and then it can be like, a bonding moment. Who knows, maybe it’ll make you both better at sparring?” Hunk soothed, holding up both his hands with the palms facing out.

Keith sighed. “I mean. It’s a good idea Hunk, but I really didn’t want him to have to lead me by the hand with something else. I mean, even if we did that, I’d like to know at least one dance, something that would impress him so we’d be starting out closer to equals. Y’know?”

“Yeah, I know.” Hunk deflated, looking off thoughtfully before an idea apparently smacked him upside the head. “No! Wait! OHMYGAWD! I have a totally brilliant idea!” He announced, now it was Keith’s turn to be surprised by the sudden outburst.

Hunk bolted straight up to his feet, a lot faster than a dude his size should have been able to. “Okay, so like, you don’t want to get any lessons in dance until you’ve shown Lance your base level. Totally get it. Well! I happen to know a dance, by heart, that Lance is a total geek for, is super easy to do, BECAUSE THE INSTRUCTIONS ARE PART OF THE SONG!” Hunk cheered, holding his hands out wide as though offering the idea on a big tray.

Keith thought about it. That could work. If the instructions were really direct, he could probably get it. Lance would be impressed that he learned something for him, and didn’t need Lance to be the one to teach it. “Okay. Let’s do it. Show me this dance.”

Hunk skipped about gleefully for a second, trying to contain his enthusiasm. “Okay, okay, okay. I’m going to do all the steps in reverse, so you just mimic me, got it?”

“Got it.” Keith nodded. Determination burning inside him. He. Would. Be. Great.

“Okay. So. It’s just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right.”

*********

Hunk was so fucking lucky that Keith could not immediately come up with a place big enough to hide his body. His face felt like it had been branded from the inside out by his own boiling blood. This was terrible. Everything went wrong! Why did everything he touch always have to go to shit? He wanted to run away and find a hole to hide in for forever but he COULDN’T because he’d made the mistake of putting on this little display IN HIS OWN ROOM! He had nowhere he could retreat to. That and Lance was between him and the door.

Lance was on the floor, doubled over, sobbing from pain… not from grief, but from how bad his stomach muscles were probably hurting from LAUGHING SO GODDAMN HARD!

“AND THEN! AND THEN!” Lance was wheezing. “OH MY GOD! And the pelvic thrust!? Oh Tiger!” He cackled. Punching the floor.

“Stop laughing at me!” Keith bellowed. It stung. He tried so hard. And of course he had to make an ass of himself.

Lance took his discomfort to heart, and started to contain himself. “I’m sorry.” He said, wiping a tear from his eye. “I’m so sorry Tiger. But that. That was amazing. I didn’t even know you’d seen that movie. It’s one of my faves.”

“What movie!?” Keith demanded, his frustration at the boiling point. He was not going to cry. He did not fucking cry. Lance had better start making sense right this fucking instant or he was going to punch him.

“The- The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Bonito, you do not just come up to me, do the fucking TIME WARP, shake that perfect little ass in the most mouth watering series of pelvic thrusts, and then act like I wouldn’t be surprised.” Lance began tittering on the edge of laughter again.

“I- I was supposed to impress you. Hunk had better learn how to sleep with his eyes open.” Keith’s anger was starting to fizzle out. It was hard to stay mad and offended when he was being swallowed up by the tide pool of Lance’s eyes coupled with his crude praises.

Lance laughed from his belly. “Oh okay, that makes more sense. I’ve made Hunk watch that movie with me a million times. I wouldn’t be mad at Hunk. It’s a dance I would recognize right away. Oh that was so cute I’m gonna die.” And there the giggles returned.

Keith snatched him by the scruff of his shirt. “I’m gonna pummel you, I swear to god.”

“Oh kinky.” Lance smirked, containing himself and pushing himself up off the floor, pulling Keith’s hand off the collar of his shirt the way one would detach a cat who’d gotten their claws caught. “Now, what was this about trying to impress me?” He asked, grinning but serious.

“You like to dance. I don’t know how to dance. I- I wanted to show that I was willing to dance for you, er, well, with you.” Keith felt the furnace building up the heat in his face again. This had better have a happy ending for him, for Hunk’s sake.

“So… Hunk taught you the Time Warp all so we could dance together? Oh Em Gee that’s actually really cute. I’m gonna get the sugar-diabeetus.” The Blue Paladin’s smile was wide. “But, I can think of ones a little better than the Time Warp. Oh it’s such a shame we’re in space and so far away from my mom’s studio. I’d like to squeeze you into a pair of high waisted pants. I’m not as good as my uncles or my older sisters. But, we could Salsa, or do a little waltz-a. If you want to anyway.” Lance smiled, punctuating it by holding Keith’s hand, putting enough distance between them to make their arms taught and then using the momentum to slowly pull Keith back with a spin. “It can be fun. And you’ve got the hips for Salsa. My mother would love to get her hands on you. You’ll just have to settle for me I guess.”

It had actually worked. Holy sheep shit it had actually worked. Lance was impressed. Lance was pleased. Lance was opening up a part of himself to Keith that he hadn’t thought to before. Keith felt absolutely gobsmacked. Had… Hunk… not been pranking him after all? That big fat evil genius.

Lance was very slow, naming steps, pulling them chest to chest and counting in his ear. Keith stepped on his feet every time and Lance didn’t even say shit about it outside of reminding him that he had little sisters that stomped on his feet in high heeled dancing shoes. That the littlest one dances by standing on his feet and letting him move her about. He sounded like he missed them. He sounded like he missed this. They didn’t have any music, just a long time of Lance slowly moving them around the room in circles. He was pretty sure this wasn’t Salsa. He was pretty sure whatever Salsa was, he was not ready for it.

“Um.” Keith started. “Should there be music?”

“Hm. Okay.” Lance didn’t bother breaking away from them to get his player though. He just pulled Keith in closer, so his nose could be right in the crook of Lance’s neck. Oh his favorite place in all the universe. Keith buried his nose against that skin, drinking deeply of the not quite cinnamon or sugar or orange peel smell there as Lance began to hum, slow and soft. The same verse over and over for a while, until finally whispering the lyrics to him.

_“Love me tender, love me long. Take me to your heart. For it’s there that I belong, and we’ll never part. Love me tender, love me true. All my dreams fulfilled. For, my darling, I love you. And I always will. Love me tender, love me dear. Tell me you are mine. I’ll be yours through all the years. Until the end of time.”_ Lance’s voice picked up as he whispered the remainder of the song directly into Keith’s ear. Keith began to shiver at the sensation of being stimulated through touch, hearing, smell (and inadvertently, taste.) It was almost overwhelming, but he didn’t want it to stop. Lance held him close as he felt his breath become slightly uneven. He wanted to kiss Lance, push him onto the floor, use his weight to keep the swimmer in place and kiss the ever living fuck out of him. Kiss him until he was breathless and with any luck hard as a rock. He wasn’t good with words, he was a man of action! He wanted to use his hands and mouth and really as much of himself as possible to make Lance feel how badly he was needed. But it would break his heart to stop Lance from singing right now. If anything interrupted the whispering in his ear before Lance was ready to be done Keith would probably fly into a homicidal rage. This was so soft. They had fucked like wild rabbits a dozen times but this! This was so intimate. This was not Lance vaguely singing another man’s words about being taken home by some Guardian Angel. This was Lance, using lyric and poem, to speak directly to Keith. A command, not poured upon him, but drizzled lazily and unhurriedly, like honey. He hated being told what to do, but this? He’d do it. He wanted to cry as Lance reached the final verse.

_“Love me tender, love me true. All my dreams fulfilled. For, my darling, I love you. And. I. Always. Will.”_

‘I promise.’ Keith thought. _‘And I always will.’_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs referenced here are Eddie Money's Take Me Home Tonight and Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender.
> 
> [Follow me on tumblr for art and other Klance-tastic crap!](http://ladygreyfist.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Here's some art I made.
> 
> Bye Felicia!
> 
> [](http://s3.photobucket.com/user/Lily_Bell/media/quiethandsstrip.png.html)  
> 


	5. The Filler Episode

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So the next chapter will likely be the big Galra reveal, which will also make that the last chapter of Feeling Sentimental. I've been doing a lot of art in the time between while I do concept work and leave myself open to suggestions from readers.
> 
> If anyone has any thoughts, ideas or just things they'd like to see included in this series, please leave me a comment here or [drop an ask or send me a message on Tumblr](http://ladygreyfist.tumblr.com/), I try to be approachable and I do thirst for prompts. If there is more you'd like to see before we get to the ultimate end, also let me know. I'm open to consideration for chapter to do between now and the final and I'm also considering making this a series so, when it is finished, if people would still like more I can add it as supplemental material.
> 
> For now, I'm leaving of my higher quality art here for some folk who maybe don't have a tumblr or who maybe don't want to wade through my crap to find it. But it's good. Some of the art is a little nsfw-ish. Sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Filler Episode is Dedicated to [Hajimieiwaizumi on tumblr because of the sweet things they said to me and for being willing to signal boost my work to some of their friends. You are a delight](http://hajimieiwaizumi.tumblr.com/).

This bad bitch is where this all started. I doodled this, in a hospital room, after my best friend delivered her offspring. I had no references and I was just dicking around but this is now probably my most reblogged thing on tumblr. The quality is so low, why do you all like it? XD

 

 

This next piece was done for [Klvnce on tumblr, they were the first to reblog my art and left me such nice tags.](http://klvnce.tumblr.com/) Klvnce kind of got me thinking to do this as a fic, but before I got the idea I did this art for them because they had such nice and encouraging things to say, they always do.

 

 

I'm just so proud of this piece that I'm going to post it again! Hot damn Lance, were you sculpted by the gods?

 

Oh no, this one hurts:

 

Lol, is okay tho; I fixed it:

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have several comics that I just can't fit here because the hosting sight smooches them (fucking photobucket) so those are just going on my tumblr to live forever.


	6. Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A break on an alien planet gives the boys a chance to go on their real first date. It ends up alright, even if everything goes pretty wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AH! So I'm so sorry this chapter took so long but to be fair it's **22 FUCKING PAGES LONG!!!**. Most of it was written by hand in a notebook between calls at work, was transcribed with my phone's talk-to-text feature (which interprets my way of talking in weird ways. It always translate Lance to Laces for some fucked up reason) so it required heavy editing and the addition of a beta reader to review it for me. Shout out to [Baby Bear](http://youareunbearable.tumblr.com/) for suffering with me while I was getting this taken together and for helping me get the flow to be more comfortable and less rigid.
> 
> I'll be adding translations via hover text later tonight when I get out of work.

“No, I’m not actually joking.” Allura giggled in response to Lance’s enthused outburst. “I know I push all of you so hard. I’m sorry that the realities of our situation require me to. But I’m not impossible. We have to stop for these materials; filaments, conductors-”

“And frankly our replicator is overtaxed.” Pidge interrupted, shooting a meaningful look over at Hunk. Apparently the device that made parts and armor (and clothing) was not designed to try to make pizza.

“It would have worked. I just didn't account for the grease.” Hunk winced. He would probably be spending his down time for the next week working on the replicator.

“The Cephaloids are a lovely people. The Galra have mostly left them alone because they don't provide any use to them. They must stay near water and they don't make or provide anything the Galra want. So long as we settle the castle a distance from civilization there won't be any conflicts.” Allura grinned, happy something seem to be going their way for once.

“Then how do they have the stuff we want? Wouldn't the Galra want it too?” Keith asked, pushing his breakfast food goo around his plate.

Allura smiled like the cat that caught the canary. “Because we're not getting them from the Cephaloids. Anti-Galra Smugglers like to do exchanges here. The Cephaloids just don't 'see' anything so long as all business is conducted in the uninhabited grasslands. They do a lot indirectly to thwart the empire. Always have. They market on the Galra looking down on them. If any of you wish to spend your shore leave visiting them I do recommend trying the Felosian clams. They are to die for!” she gushed. Coran would later explain that Allura’s father often took them here when Allura was a child and that King Alfor had been particularly fond of the Cephaloids as allies to Altea.

“You know, as much as I would love that, I broke the replicator. I should really spend that time getting it back up and running. If anyone goes though, this guy would appreciate a doggy bag?” Hunk said, pointing at himself with both thumbs. Breakfast continued, conversations breaking off as people discussed what they were going to do with their free day.

“Hey.” Lance grinned toothily at Keith. “If we are not leaving until tomorrow night and the Cephaloids are so great, do you maybe want to go on a real first date?” He was trying really hard not to seem flustered. A real first date.

Keith’s thick eyebrows knit together: “I thought we were already dating?” He inquired. He wasn't wrong. They were. But in thinking about it they had been dating for months without having gone on an actual date. They hung out all the time but aside from the sex and kissing they had never done anything that was part of traditional dates.

“We are!” Lance saved, seeing the gears clicking away in Keith’s head. He didn't want Keith questioning how Lance felt. “We're dating but we've not gone on a date yet. You know. Visiting new things together, trying Cephaloid Cuisine, learning songs and dances and their culture? I’d love to take you dancing somewhere other than our room, er, your room. Sorry.” Lance blushed. He started sleeping in Keith's room nearly every night. He was starting to think of the space as ‘ours’ and not ‘his’ but he didn't want to infringe. Keith needed a personal space. He needed to have a quiet, dark place to go when shit got overwhelming. Just because Lance was welcome into that space didn't mean that he should claim any mutual ownership of it. Keith seemed to pick up on what he was fumbling with.

“I accept your offer of a date, but I don't think our dancing is any less just because we did it in _our_ room.” He said, unleashing that fuck-me stare on him. Lance couldn't hide his blush, but he could attempt it by burying his face in his hands.

" _Dios mio!_ " Tiger! You are going to kill me with those eyes one day!” He breathed, peeping through a crack in his fingers at his very confused boyfriend.

Pidge snorted, “Mating rituals of the Blue Breasted Boobie.” They snickered. “I know this is _Young Love™_.” They used finger quotes to put extra emphasis on their mocking, “But do you have to be making bedroom eyes at the breakfast table?” The tease was evident in their voice despite the look of light disgust on their face.

“Leave’em alone, Pidge.” Shiro unleashed the full torrent of his fatherly voice. “Boys, try to be a little more discreet at the table.” And just like that it was settled. Lance swore Shiro had to be a dad. He had no idea how, but it was creepy how good he was at it. 

Coran offered to take care of dishes so the Paladins could meet with the incoming Smuggler Caravan. It was boring as hell. They just totally stood around looking competent as Allura and Hunk talked shop with the visitors. They were nice enough, for Smugglers. Not nearly the hard, ruffians Lance imagined when he thought of the word. He would have called them peddlers or maybe scavengers. They had ‘found’ many things that may at one time have belonged to the empire that the princess thought would assist them in their endeavors against Zarkon. While the Smugglers needed to be paid they did gift a large portion of their haul to Allura as advance payment for the sector's eventual liberation from The Galra. All the Paladins helped load the parts into the castle for Hunk and Pidge to drool over. 

Lance was positively vibrating with excitement when Allura finally released them. He was going to make sure that this was the best date Keith had. He had spent most of the time hauling equipment going over the plan in his head. They’d pack a few things, bundled onto a hover bike and ride to the nearest Cephaloid settlement. They would go sightseeing during the day and get something to eat at sunset. Once the stars were out he’d take Keith dancing. Keith would fall in love with him all over again on the dance floor. They’d get a couple blankets and a basket of goodies and have a light snack and fall asleep on the shore. This planet was mostly ocean and Allura had said the Cephaloids were water-bound people. That had to mean a beach. He'd love to show Keith how it felt to drift away to sleep with the hum of the ocean in your ears. He had everything planned and ready. He'd been complemented by past girlfriends and boyfriends on his ability to show someone a good time.

Lance passed Keith on his way out the door. He took his lover's hand and gave him a flourishing spin and a little dip. Keith hated being dipped and it always made him splutter like a soaked cat. Lance didn't give Keith have a chance to get mad. He peppered his face with kisses.

“ _Bonito! Besos para mi Bonito!_ ” he sang, keeping their little dance going. “Pack a change of clothes and some comfy shoes. I've plans for you. _Un noche muy romantico! La cena, la música, el baile! Será mágico!_ ” He continued his little made-up song, feeling warmth bloom in his chest at how he could make Keith laugh so easily. The Red Paladin was eventually able to shake off Lance’s hands to end the dance, only to cup the sides of Lance’s face with his own hands and hold him still for some tender kisses. Lance melted like an ice sculpture in the August sun. For a guy who didn't know how to kiss a few months ago could Keith could just take his breath away. His kisses were deep but short little sips of ambrosia for a parched soul. 

“I'm gonna -” Lance whispered. Being interrupted by Keith’s lips against his own.

“I’m gonna pack -” Keith’s hands roamed down to Lance’s hips.

“Some blankets -” Oh hot damn Lance _loved_ when Keith hooked his fingers in the belt loops of his jeans.

“And we can sleep under - _AY!_ For the love of God, Tiger! You really are going to kill me!” He pressed one more deep kiss to Keith’s mouth before wriggling free. He straightened his rumbled clothes as the shorter boy stood there, not a wrinkle in his shirt, with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. “We’ll have plenty of time for a whole lot of _that_ -” Lance began.

“Promises.” Keith interrupted, the corners of his eyes wrinkling as his smile widened.

“Plenty of time for _that_ when we get back. I want to show you a good time, Bonito.” Lance sighed, “We can do that whenever. But I don’t get to take you out just any day.” It was like watching the sunrise, seeing Keith’s look of ‘this is nonsense’ shift into understanding.

“Okay.” Keith relented. “I’ll get ready and keep my hands to myself. But in exchange for making me wait, I get to be on bottom next time.” He nearly purred.

Lance cursed in Spanish. “If you keep this up I’m going to need Jesus. Most people want to be on top usually.” 

“Well, I want to be on bottom next time. Unless I change my mind. Then you’ll just do whatever. You aren’t that picky.”

 

“You’re right. I’m not. I’m the master of all the positions. Casa Sutra.”

“It’s kama sutra.”

“Whatever, Bonito. Just meet me outside when you’re ready. I’ve got to get ready too and pack some things.” Lance shook his head as he stalked off in the direction of his own room.

This date was going to cost him; doing a week of chores for both Hunk and Pidge (not to be redeemed in tandem) in exchange for use of the bike the two were building. They had just finished it a week ago and had driven it around the hanger loudly celebrating their accomplishment.

Lance strapped the bundle of snacks, water and blankets onto the back and with Hunk and Pidge’s blessing, pushed the hover bike out of the hanger to find Keith waiting in the grass. Lance himself had put on a pair of beige cargo shorts, a white tank top and a blue button up shirt that he left open. He had made sure he looked spiffy for their first date afterall. Keith, who owned nothing but black shirts and jeans had done Lance the honor of combing his goddamned hair and pulling it back into a small ponytail, exposing the ivory nape of his neck. Better than lingerie, frankly. He'd also had grabbed up his red motorcycle jacket but was sitting on it rather than wearing it as he sunned himself.

“Your chariot, m’lord.” Lance purred, breaking Keith out of his meditations. “Here.” He tossed Keith the key... Well... It didn't look like a normal key but what in space did? 

“You want me to drive?” Keith asked, hopping up and scooping up his jacket. 

“It's kind of like your flying bike on Earth. When Hunk and Pidge invent a long hoverboard I'll call dibs but this looks to be more your thing.” Lance said, parking himself on the back end of the seat. “And I'm not going to call it ‘Riding Bitch' so wipe that cheeky look right off your face.”

He didn't really expect Keith to be able to so he just feigned impatience as Keith took his time leisurely mounting the bike. This was his punishment for being a tease. He knew it. But Lance didn't care. He just scooched until his chest pressed into Keith's back, wrapped his long noodley arms around that solid waist and held onto the bike with his knees and thighs. Lance was grateful that Keith took a little pity on him and did not immediately throw open the throttle (were they called throttles on futuristic space motorcycles?). Keith gradually brought them up to speed. Despite there being no State Troopers to ticket them Keith still did not blast through. They traveled at a pace that allowed them to admire the view. All around them was a sea of grasslands, large boulders and rock formations littered the otherwise flat landscape. Some were huge and cliff like, revealing waterfalls cutting through and sparkling rivers rushing towards the sea. They vaguely followed one of these rivers as it would lead to the Cephaloid settlements by the ocean. They comfortably rode in silence for about an hour, letting the wind blow past them, when the silence was shattered by the bike making a noise. A noise that, in Lance's less than expert opinion, was very clearly not good at all. The bike slowed rapidly and began to bob, culminating in a complete stop and the hover control crapping out, dropping them the three feet to the ground.

“Fuck Fuck Fuck!” Keith cursed just as Lance asked what the fuck was going on. “It's dead.” Keith hissed, turning the key over a few times. No rev, just a clicking noise. The engine wouldn't respond.

“Pidge is going to kill us.” Lance sighed.

“No they're not. We didn't do anything to it that we weren't supposed to.” Keith reasoned, left-brained as ever. “We just gotta call in over the com and wait for them to come get us.”

“Okay.” Lance replied. Watching Keith and waiting. Keith just stared back at him expectantly.

“Um. Aren't you going to call them?” Keith asked, his brows knitting together.

Lance felt his own brows shoot up, “The bike had a built-in com. I didn't expect it was going to shit the bed. I didn't bring mine... Did... You bring yours?” Lance winced, Keith's face grew darker as he asked.

“No.” Keith answered flatly. “I thought you were taking care of everything so I just showered and got dressed. I figured you'd have your com. Fuck.” Keith growled, kicking the side of the bike.

“Oh, your fault for assuming that I could be competent.” Lance rolled his eyes. “God we are so dumb. Shiro is going to use the dad voice on us. Damn. So now what?”

“Thank your God that you wore comfy shoes for dancing? Because we're going to have to walk back to the castle to let them know.” Keith huffed, ripping the key out of the ignition and shoving it into his jacket pocket. Lance did the quick version of the math in his head. At the speed they had traveled, for as long as they traveled, it would take them all day to get back. They'd have to do some night walking if they were going straight. They weren't going to the Cephaloid settlement. He wasn't going to take Keith out to dinner, or take him dancing, or lull him to sleep on the beach. They’d spend a day that was supposed to be magical and romantic marching back home. The date was cancelled before it even began. If he just remembered his com. Had he not counted on the bike. Maybe it would be different. He had wanted to prepare everything and make today perfect. Now it was going to suck. “Keith. I'm so sorry.” He said, catching his boyfriend off guard.

“Don't worry about it. I didn't bring my com either. It's not fair to make you responsible. We had no reason to think the bike would be unreliable.” Keith answered, grabbing his share of the bundles off the back.

Lance stewed as he collected his own and slung it over his back, snatching up the handle of the instrument case. “I'm not leaving Dulce behind. She may come in handy now that our date’s ruined.” He explained when Keith gave a questioning look at the case. The alien that Lance had gotten it from had told him what it was called, but it looked and sounded a bit like a ukulele and that's what Lance had taken to calling it, before he had gotten it properly (he thought) tuned and named Dulce, anyway.

“That's fine... Dulce... Is welcome to come.” Keith nodded as they began their trek.

"Don't be jealous of my baby." Lance grinned. Narrowly avoiding being playfully pushed over by Keith.

Lance discovered that what started as a pleasant walk actually kind of sucks more than expected. For one it was quickly approaching the hottest part of the day and with the sun so high it was getting a little sticky. After a while he realized that Keith was likely in a worse place. The pale skin of his face and neck was beginning to redden. He wished he'd brought a hat or something. Fortunately he had an idea. "Hey. Stop a sec. I want to get something out of your pack." He said, rummaging around in the bag on his boyfriend's back. He pulled out the canteen of water, took off his over-shirt and poured water over it, drenching the fabric.

"We can refill the canteen at one of the rivers. Until then let's not cook your brain." Lance reasoned when Keith began staring at him questioningly. He tied the sleeves of the shirt around Keith's forehead and let the damp fabric hide his neck and the sides of his face from the sun. "We want to minimize sunburn." He explained. 

"Thank you." Keith said, adjusting the shirt to shade as much of himself as possible. "What about you? You're showing more skin now." Keith asked worriedly, staring at Lance's bare head, arms, shoulders and calves.

"What about me?"

"Don't be dumb. Aren't you worried about sunburn?" Keith rolled his eyes at Lance's blooming grin.

"Tiger, look at me. When the angels made me I was cast from polished bronze. I’m a caramelized sugar god. I don't burn. I tan. The sun doesn't hurt me. It makes me sexier. " Lance boasted, pulling off his tank top too and doing a cheesy version of the salsa. Intentionally being extra stupid to bring a smile to the face of his pissy cat and pleased that it worked. He watched as Keith shook his head and walked on. However, while the fiery little Canadian’s back was turned Lance did drench his tank top and wrap it around his own head. A tan wouldn't help him if his brain cooked.

They walked together for several hours, chatting about anything. Things they remembered from childhood, things they had always wanted to do, but eventually their walk fell silent. Keith was fine with silence, Lance was always unsettled by it. He had come from a big, loud family that lived close to a tourist hot spot, silence was uncommon for his world. So, eventually, the quiet just got to be too unnerving for Lance. Keith could probably go days without saying a word or hearing another person's voice. Lance was sure he'd probably wilt and die in the same situation. It only took him a few hours to start casually talking to inanimate objects but he was sure he needed to be around auditory language to live. He didn't feel like pestering Keith with mindless babble so he took Dulce out, slung her case across his hip, and began idly plucking and strumming, adjusting the keys until he had her tuned the way he wanted her.

"I'm still sorry." Lance said, after a while. "That I didn't get to take you on a good date, I mean. I'm sorry our first date sucked."

Keith stopped dead in his tracks, Lance stumbled a little. "This sucks?" Keith asked. "I thought we were having fun." He looked at his shoes. Lance had seen this look. Keith looked like this when he was questioning the validity of how he perceived things. For a guy who didn't have a scrap of doubt during a fight Keith constantly worried that his way of seeing things was ‘wrong.' Lance hated that. Not that he hated Keith, but more that he hated the people who had instilled that thinking in Keith when he was young. His boyfriend had not painted the life of an emotionally troubled orphan to be luxurious in any sense. 

"Are you having fun?" Lance asked silencing Dulce.

"Well. Yes! It's warm and nice out. The grass smells good. The breeze is cool but not cold. We're moving at a comfortable pace. It’s peaceful, just being alone with you. There's no one else to share you with. No one else to make noise. I can just listen to us and the wind in the grass and the trickle of the streams. I'm having fun just being out here with you. You're not?"

Lance felt like he was bolted to the dirt. He only wanted to peer into the swirling smoke of Keith’s eyes, but not when they showed so nakedly that Keith was worried that his fun was wrong.

"I just fell in love with you again." Lance breathe, the words bubbling up, unbidden, like a spring. Keith had not expected that, clearly, as Lance pushed on. "I was going to make you fall in love with me again on our date! I wanted to show you a good time! Bonito, I'm so sorry. I got so wrapped up in thinking that a good time was like traditional dates that I didn't stop to think about what would be a good time for you! I'm so fucking stupid! " Lance bellowed, dropping Dulce and cupping Keith's face in his hands so he could shake his head and squish his cheeks. " _Mi Cielo!_ I can have a good time just hanging out with you! I'm a simple, dumb animal! I could have a good time just being together and having a lot of freaky sex with you! Like, I'd be fine with just kissing you and butt stuff! " he cried, planting kisses on Keith's face.

"Okay. You ruined the mood. Get off me." Keith deadpanned, shaking Lance off half-heartedly. "So, our date doesn't suck?" He asked, straightening.

Lance grinned wolfishly, "Keith. All I wanted was for you to have fun with me. If going for a long ass walk in the middle of nowhere is fun for you then I will have gotten what I wanted out of this day. "

"You're so stupid." Keith smiled.

"But I'm your stupid." Lance grinned, picking up the abandoned instrument and walking side-by-side with his _Corazón_. It seemed like it was going to be a pleasant walk again, with the sun dipping low, kissing the horizon. It was officially sunset when loud rustles from the distant grasses caught their attention. Something, scratch that, several somethings were rushing towards them. Faster than a human and making a hell of a lot of noise.

"Fucking aye. I don't like the sound of that." Lance groaned.

"Run! " Keith shouted, taking off like a bolt. Lance struggle to keep up while getting the ukulele back in it's case. "Don't stop Lance! Come on!" Keith scolded, Lance's longer legs helped him close the distance once the instrument was no longer busy in his hands.

Behind them four creatures burst from the tall grass. Scaly and angular. They looked like medium-large dogs crossed with an iguana and with a dash of nightmares for flavor. "Oh shit!" Lance screamed. They were not as fast as whatever these Stephen King wet dream creations were.

"Lance! Come on! Keep running! " Keith shouted, egging Lance forward. Two of the monsters broke away back into the tall grass, leaving the other two to gain ground on them.

“Shit! They’re hunting us!” Keith panted.

“No shit! Where’d the other two go!?” 

“They’re probably gonna run ahead, trying to box us in! They’re pack hunting! Shit! Lance I don’t think we’re going to shake them!” Thank goodness Keith was not the I-Told-You-So sort and that this was not the appropriate time, because as soon as he finished explaining the other two creatures burst into the road ahead of them. No charging, but waiting. They knew their prey was surrounded now.

Lance snatched up his instrument case by the neck; “Get the fuck back or I swear I will El Kabong you into the atmosphere!” He threatened, brandishing his lackluster weapon as the creatures slowly started to tighten the circle they were enclosed in. 

Keith was apparently better prepared. He whipped out his bayard and extended his sword. “Keep to my back Lance.” He ordered. Lance was in no mood to argue over this. He did as he was told. If Lance had his own bayard this would be an entirely different story; he could have picked these monsters off in quick order but he’d left it with his armor, expecting that they’d be spending the day among a peaceful people. Keith was handy enough with a sword, but it meant these creatures had to get in close enough to them for Keith to use it. That was the dangerous part.

They were even more frightening up close. It appeared they had four eyes and their teeth locked together in the front of their faces like a bear trap. These were not the kind of jaws Lance thought any part of him should be caught in! They snapped and swiped at the two humans, herding them, looking for a weakened place. They did not have to toy with their food for long. One, the smallest of the four, lunged, clawed forelegs extended and got only Keith’s sword in its belly for its troubles. Now they were done playing. The remaining three made to take them down.

Keith used the momentum of the first to twist them and sent the impaled creature flying at another; the largest in the pack, knocking it out of the air as he went to slash at one of the others. Lance reacted on pure fear instinct. He kept the final one from landing on them with the butt end of his case, slamming it sideways into the creature’s flank and sending it sprawling several feet away. It had taken only a few seconds, but Keith had made quick work of his in that time. Seeing that they were not the simple prey they had hoped, the one Lance had bashed and the largest one picked themselves up and fled, abandoning their dead packmates.

“Oh my fucking god!” Lance huffed, trying to catch his breath and calm his racing heart. He was startled again when he felt Keith pull him in for a kiss. 

“You knocked that fucker right out of the air!” Keith cheered when he let him go. “With a fucking ukulele! That is the most amazing, ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen!” 

“We just nearly died how are you so calm right now!?” Lance shrieked, not nearly as impressed with his improvised combat skills as Keith seemed to have been. 

Keith just shrugged. “We weren’t going to die. There was only four. We could have got them all if they chose to keep fighting, I didn’t think they would though. Most animals go for easy food.” 

Lance took a deep breath and calmed himself. “I want to be surprised that you remembered to bring your sword but not your com… but I can’t be. Your priorities should terrify me but I’m just so grateful right now that my boyfriend can slay dragons, if tiny ones, and not bat an eyelash. Lord Jesus save me.” He looked up at the rapidly darkening sky. 

“It’s usually more likely that I need a sword.” Keith shrugged, dismissing the blade and fitting his bayard back into his hip packs. (He did not like them being called fanny packs, Lance saved calling them that for emergencies when he just absolutely had to irritate Keith.) 

“Okay, whatever you say. We’d better get moving. It’s going to be dark soon and we still have a few hours of walking to do.” Lance said, stepping over the carcasses. 

Keith hummed and stood still, but caught up after a moment. “Lance. We shouldn’t walk at night.” He stated. “We should find some temporary shelter and stay put. Traveling at night is just a recipe for getting lost. It’s like, like, one of the first emergency survival rules. Once it’s dark it’ll be hard to see the path or make sure we’re on the right one.” He stated, taking hold of Lance’s arm, his touch lingering there. This was Keith’s tactile way of making his point serious. “It’s not too dark to see yet. We should spend the last of the light finding a place to stop. And making sure we’ve got water and things we’ll need for the night.” 

Keith made a very good point. It was probably a lot safer to actually stop rather than walk through the dark, especially knowing there were beasts like those dragon-things roaming about. “Okay. Yeah. What kind of temporary shelter are we looking for?” Lance didn’t have any survivalist training. Unless fishing counted. He could fish. But that was really it. He didn’t know how to start a fire without a lighter or matches or anything like that.

Keith smiled at him, apparently he’d been expecting some push back. “The first rule of a Survival Situation is S.T.O.P. Stop. Think. Observe. Plan.” He stated, it sounded like a quote. Lance was more than sure that it was. Keith nearly always made statements while looking you dead in the eye, not blinking as much as a normal person would. However, when he was quoting something, or talking from memor, he always looked at his left shoulder. He went on to describe that they either needed to find a sheltered outcropping of rocks or, if they found a lot of large sticks lying about, he could construct a shelter, but he was less confident about finding those kinds of things in the sparsely wooded grasslands. 

Lance listened intently as Keith continued describing survivalist practices and talking about facts of being alone in the wilderness. Describing what one has to do, the importance of clean water, ect. He knew an incredible amount about what it took to live in the wilderness, but then again, Lance couldn’t be surprised given how long Keith had lived alone in a shack in the desert. He let Keith describe the pros and cons of settling at each of the outcrops they passed. One was not suited because it was too wet, another because of how the wind would blow smoke from a fire at them instead of away. He told Lance about how, normally, in a survival situation, one could not afford to be picky and they would have had to make due with that first, damp one. But as they were not children or in any immediate danger (for some reason tiny dragons roaming the wild grasslands did not strike him as immediate or dangerous) they could afford to find a more suited place. 

Eventually before the light had fully vanished, Keith located a comfortable hollow in one of the cliff-like rock structures they had passed before. It required they climb up about ten feet to it, but it had a large ledge, and an outcropping above it. “Oh this is perfect!” Keith sighed, climbing up the rocky face of the cliff, pack and all, as though he was barely weighed down. Lance wasn’t as skilled at rock climbing, it seemed, and he had to pass his own pack and Dulce up to Keith and then accept a hand up. It was a fairly good spot. High up enough where those little scaley bastards couldn’t climb up and reach them, long enough where the both of them, their belonging and even a small fire could likely fit on the edge. “It’s right near the caravan path. There’s water right over there! The way it shields the wind is perfect!” Keith marveled, standing up on the end of the ledge as to not bump his head on the shorter overhang so that he might peer about and observe the surrounding area.

“It’s nice. For a temporary shelter. I’m not ready to sign the lease though. There’s no grocery stores and I don’t like the schools in the neighborhood. Lance Jr. deserves quality education. And what if we have another? Not enough room for a nursery.” Lance chuckled, laying back on the flat stone surface and kicking his shoes and socks off.

“I know you’re joking because if we had babies we wouldn’t name them Lance Jr.” Keith smirked. That was how he knew he was joking… not the bit about the lease or the schools. God Keith was amazing but he zero’d in on the silliest part of jokes. At least he got it. 

“I don’t think we’d have much luck in making babies there.” Lance grinned back as Keith tossed him back his shoes.

He motioned for Lance to put his shoes back on. “Fill up the canteens while I go looking for some kindling. I won’t go far and if we do it quick we can be warm, have something to eat, and maybe just try that baby making thing, even if it won’t work.”

Lance snorted, but smiled, “Aw, you’re flirting all on your own now. And doing so good. I just can’t say no to that face. I’ll get the water, but don’t be too long with the kindling. I can’t get back up here by myself. I’m a shitty climber.”

“Can you do anything outdoors?”

“Fuck you I can do plenty when I am by the ocean. I can swim, and sail, and I’ve caught fish with my bare hands once and I know how to clean and cook them, okay. Not all of us are Les Stroud.”

“Sorry, I was just kidding. You know who Les Stroud is?” Keith asked, helping Lance down from the ledge after himself.

Lance stumbled only a little but quickly righted himself with the canteens. “Yeah, Survivorman. I had cable growing up. I only saw an episode or two but he was always in like, forests and shit. He wasn’t surviving in urban Cuba so the show wasn’t really relevant to me?” 

“I watched reruns of it a lot as a kid.” Keith confessed, walking with Lance to the stream and picking up sticks along the way. The trees only seemed to sprout up in any thickness near the banks of the rivers and streams. “I never liked being cooped up, you know? I always liked being outdoors. Nature isn’t really silent, but it’s the right kind of quiet. When I was little, I used to throw tantrums when I was made to come back inside. If no one made me come in I’d stay outside all night. A couple times we’d be able to set up small tents at the group home, I loved sleeping outdoors, but there were a lot of us and the staff didn’t always want to go to the trouble of setting them up when I was the one who wanted it most. I… I wasn’t a well behaved kid.” He shrugged. “I didn’t like to be told what to do, so they wanted me to learn discipline... so they got me in a couple martial arts classes because they thought maybe it would help. It didn’t.” At this he laughed at something. “All it did was make it harder for anyone to get and keep their hands on me when I was being a little shit. Dumbasses.”

Lance peered up at him from where he was filling the canteens. “Weren’t you always a little shit? Like, 24/7?” Lance chuckled.

“No actually. There were a couple years where I tried extra hard to be good. Funny how well behaved you can be when there’s something you don’t want taken away. I was shitty at making friends too, so they put me and some of the other shy kids in the scouts. If I acted up, they would cancel my enrollment.” 

“Oh my god.”

“Shut up.”

“No. You were a fucking **boy scout!?** ” Lance giggled, capping the canteens and trying to stand up without doubling over from his laughed. That was ridiculous. Keith had to be shitting with him.

To prove his point Keith raised his right hand and held up three fingers, “ _On my honour, I promise that I will do my best to do my duty to God and the Queen, to help other people at all times, and to carry out the spirit of the Scout Law._ ” He was maybe a little smug about still remembering the oath.

Lance felt his jaw hit his chest. He would have never, in a googolplex worth of years, have expected that he would be standing in the middle of an alien prairie at dusk with his devil-may-care boyfriend listening to said renegade delivery the mother fucking Scouts Canada oath. He could accept the alien planet, he had come to accept a lot in his time in space. But this was too unreal. “Did I die when the hover bike crashed? Is this my trial to enter heaven? You were for real a boy scout?”

Keith gave him a level look and prodded him back towards their encampment with his bundle of sticks. “I am a boy, I was a scout, I guess that makes me a boy scout. At least I was for a few years. I actually had fun as a scout. I got to spend time outdoors, and learn a lot. They eventually pulled me out because I still wasn’t good at the socializing thing. I didn’t really have friends in the scouts, I mean. I’d work with the other kids. But it was kind of like, we worked together because it was expected, not because we actually liked each other or bonded. Still, I was actually really sad when the staff said that they weren’t going to pay for us to be in scouts anymore. One more year and I could have been a Venture Scout.”

“I’m dying. I’m so shocked. Did you get the first aid badge so you can give me a jump start when I have a heart attack from the shock of this revelation?” 

“No. I didn’t get that one. But I did get badges for camping skills, trail skills, vertical skills, and scoutcraft.”

“Vertical skills sounds like a sex position.”

“It’s climbing shit, doofus. You know. That thing you suck at.” Keith emphasized this by using only one arm and his feet to hoist himself back up to their den. 

“You know what I don’t suck at? Sucking. If you have any kind of desire to be blown in the great outdoors it would behoove you not to leave me down here to die, muchas gracias.”

“Is that a promise?”

“It’s a big fat maybe, but it’s a 100% no if those dragons eat me.” 

Keith played at considering. “I have weight all my options. 50% chance of blow job is very tempting, yes. I think I’ll take it.” 

“Scout’s honor?” Lance teased, reaching his hand up.

“Then again-” Keith glowered, retracting his own.

“No! Tiger! _Mi Cielo!_ I was only kidding please!” He knew and understood that there was sometimes a fine line, but he so absolutely loved to toe it.

“Okay, but increase likelihood of blow job to 75% or no deal.” Keith said, putting his hand back down.

“Okay okay. 75% of BJ. Deal.” Lance agreed, shaking Keith’s hand once before getting help being hoisted up. “That’s it. We’re home for the night. It’s a rock in the middle of nowhere but I’ll take it. Are you going to make the fire there Dudley Do-Right? OH! You know, I’ll just… spread out the blankets aaaaand get us some food.” He corrected himself at a sharp look from Keith, who was, yes, actually starting a fire. 

The snacks were simple, some kind of futuristic alien protein bar kind of thing, oddly they didn’t taste as bad as nunvill. Where you’d expect a protein bar to taste like honey or oats or something these alien ones tasted kind of like cheese. It was kind of cool. For once. 

The fire was small but it did its job and the outcropping was cozy, with them pressed shoulder to shoulder, lying on their backs with the fire beside them, looking up into the unfamiliar stars. As they nibbled on the not-really-cheese snacks they tried to make up constellations.

They saw cats and fish, dancers and runners. 

“That one looks kind of like a bird. See, there’s the beak, and the wings.” Keith pointed out, drawing it with his finger against the blue-black sky.

“Oh! There’s one that looks like my Tía Maria!” Lance giggled. “You haven’t met her, but trust me. I’d know those earlobes anywhere.” 

Keith was silent for a long moment. Uncomfortably so. “If we go back to Earth…” He began. “Can I meet her?” The question was so soft and quiet. Lance peered over and saw Keith absentmindedly tracing the seams of his fingerless gloves. He knew that sign.

“Of course you’re going to meet her. Unfortunately for you. She’s loud and talks through her nose. And her kisses are sloppy. I don’t care so much but it’ll drive you nuts. No, you’ll like my sisters best, I think. Little Angela will want you to braid her hair and probably clutch your leg everywhere we go.” 

Keith was still uncomfortably silent, thinking about what he wanted to say. “Will they like me, you think?” It was nearly a whisper. “Your family is so important to you, I just-”

“They’ll like you.” Lance promised, without a second’s hesitation. “All of them. Even Tía Maria and most days she only likes her cat and her pre-lunch scotch. I mean it. When we get back to Earth, I want to go back to my family. Do- Do you want to go back with me?” He asked, he wanted to be sure he was reading the situation right. Keith could either mean that he wants to be with Lance and Lance’s family, or he doesn’t want to be surrounded by so many people. Either could be the case when it came to Keith.

“Can we stop at my house and get my things on our way there?” Keith asked. 

Lance smiled. “We can stop at the hobo barn yes. So, I mean, not being nosey but, is my family the only people to consider? I mean. Is there anyone you want to stop by and see in Regina?”

“No.” Was Keith’s sharp reply.

“I’m… sorry about that. Not even a care giver at the group home that you miss?” Lance asked, hoping to come on some kind of good memory.

Keith shrugged and pressed himself in closer to Lance. “Not really. I got to go to the Garrison young, not because I was a genius like Hunk or Pidge. I had skills, interest, and frankly they were done dealing with me. I was skipping school about as often as I was going. It was hard to sit and focus for hours about garbage I didn’t give a shit about. I wanted to travel and I wanted to fly and there was nothing related to that. I was initially looking at the Royal Canadian Air Force, but I was too young to enroll, but they tested me anyway and contacted the Garrison and I was granted a scholarship for early recruitment there based on my skills. I could have cut it with the academic part. I could. I just. I just really couldn’t stand the shit at the Garrison. The instructors were total cocks.”

 

“Is that why you dropped out?” Lance asked, twisting his fingers between Keith’s.

“I dropped out because my Advanced Principles of Aerodynamics instructor noticed my fidgets. He told me to stop doing it because people were going to think I take the short bus.” He snapped. “I really, really hate that. If I saw him again I was gonna deck him. So I just left.” 

“I’m… really sorry. We were all told it was that you had issues with authority.”

“Yeah. Issues with authority calling me retarded. I used to hear it at the group home and shit. Not usually from care givers but… other kids. They’d say shit like, like I didn’t fit in anywhere. Sometimes I’d wish I’d get adopted, as just a fuck-you to all of’em.” Keith glared hate into the sea of stars, giving the heavens a one finger salute as though it could reach all the people who belittled and kept him down when he’d been on Earth.

“How could you have never been adopted? I bet you were the cutest fucking little shit.” He said, without even thinking. He wanted to kick himself after. Keith didn’t even seem to notice, he just continued on.

“I never made a very good impression on visiting parents… and I was old. Um. Babies and really little kids get adopted fast.” He explained, looking away. “Because, they won’t really remember a time before their new parents had them. It’d be just as easy as if they had their own baby. But, when you’re older, every year you get older it gets to be less and less likely. By the time I was eleven I was sure I wouldn’t be adopted… so I stopped trying to talk to people who came to visit. It was so hard to before and it wasn’t worth stressing myself out anymore when I knew they’d just start paperwork with one of the other kids’ names on it.”

“Yeah but, why didn’t you get adopted when you were a baby then?”

“I didn’t live in the group home til I was maybe...five? Ish?” Keith drawled, making it clear just how unclear the facts were for him. “I think I lived with my mom before then. I don’t remember much. Y’know. Just what they told me. They said that a car hit her when we were crossing the street. She died. I was thrown and maybe I hit my head because I don’t remember anything from before. The police were looking for a woman, Jennifer Gyeong, and they thought maybe that’s who my mom was. But I don’t really know for sure.” The disappointment in his voice was earth shattering.

“I don’t even know if my name was always Keith, isn’t that fucked up?” He continued, not really giving Lance a chance to answer. “I was really confused at the time, and my head hurt, and I they asked me what my name was. I dunno. I may have made it up. It’s kind of fucked when you don’t know if you are who you say you are.” He confessed, holding tight to Lance’s hand and staring away. 

“Didn’t your mom have like, an I.D. on her? In her purse?” Lance whispered.

“They gave the group home all the things that she had on her that weren’t, you know, trashed. The group home gave them to me when I left. None of it had her name or my name on it. I’ve got some of them in my house in the desert. It’s where I got my knife. The group home only let me have it because they said it looked ceremonial, like, maybe it was part of my mom’s religion. I dunno. I’m glad I had it on me when we got sucked through the wormhole.” Keith’s eyes were far-away for a long time, just holding Lance’s hand and rubbing his thumb against Lance’s first knuckle, following the ridge of the bone. 

The silence was finally broken by Keith taking a deep, quivering breath. He was trying so hard to be stoic but he was so emotionally exposed. Lance nearly shivered but remained silent and let Keith finish saying what he needed to get off his chest. “I don’t- um- I don’t talk to other people about it. B-but if- if I’m going to go back and be with your family a-and learn where you came from, you can know what little I know about where I came from.” Keith stammered, Lance knew he was seven kinds of overwhelmed. Keith had just given himself, at his weakest, pinkest most vulnerable center. He had just spent the past few hours telling Lance about his past, his experiences and now, even his mom. As far as he knew Keith kept his life before the Garrison relatively private. He answered direct questions honestly, but he never volunteered. His mother must have been a soft spot in his otherwise impenetrable armor.

“I’m sorry I won’t get to meet your mom. I bet she was great.” Lance said softly. He couldn’t think of anything much else he could say to that. 

“I-it’s okay. I don’t really remember her myself.” Keith said, sullenly and obviously trying to brush it off. Lance wasn’t going to have that. He rolled slightly, so he could hover with his face above Keith’s and make him look him in the eye. 

Lance took Keith’s hands and brought them to himself, encouraging those fingers to trace the bones and rise and falls of his own face, neck, and shoulders. Keith was not going to quiet-hands himself over this now. Keith was exposed and if stimming would make him more comfortable then by god he was going to encourage Keith’s stims. The shorter man seemed to understand, and relent, settling for feeling the texture of the engraving on the small gold disk that Lance wore on a chain around his neck.

“Keith,” Lance whispered. “If I love you to the moon and back, I’m sure you mother loved you even more. I’m sorry that you lost your family young. That sucks. It does. I wish there was something I could do about the past, but I can’t. But even if we weren’t boyfriends, being on Team Voltron has let us bond. All of Team Voltron is your family now and my family. And- and when we go home, when we get back to Earth, I’m dragging your ass to Cuba with me so my birth family can fill you up with all the stupid family love and food and bullshit that you missed out on. You got a family now and if no one else has said it to you, let me be the goddamned first!” Lance said, feeling his eye sting. “Shit. Sorry. Oh god, I’ve made myself cry. Sorry.” He hiccuped, rubbing at his eyes. 

Keith stared up at him, the stars reflected in his dark eyes. “Fucking hell, you’re such an idiot. Why are you like this?” Keith whispered, but it sounded an awful lot like “I love you.” Those wandering fingers released Lance’s medallion, tracing up his throat and jaw to settle behind his ears and pull that thinner face down to his own for a kiss. 

It started soft and tender, but this was Keith and in true Keith fashion he could not control his appetite for tactile stimulation. For a time Lance was allowed to be the one on top during the kiss, but eventually Keith was prepared to take his rightful place. He broke the kiss, so he could bury his nose in Lance’s shoulder as they rolled, sighing at the smell. “I’ve been walking all day in the sun without a shower. I probably stink.” Lance warned, but Keith just straddled his hips and started licking and nipping hungrily at that sweet spot, moaning slightly. 

“No, smells so good. Like, work-out sweat smells so much better than scuzzy-sweat. Lance you taste good too.” Keith damn near purred as he moved his mouth and attentions across Lance’s throat, stopping to lavish the adam’s apple before tucking back into the other shoulder for some more necking. Meanwhile Keith’s hands decided they wanted to relearn Lance’s torso. Those pale digits explored and prodded and pressed luxuriously as they traveled south, finally settling at the waistband of Lance’s shorts, fumbling with the button. 

“You’re ready for that? This fast?” Lance breathed, trying to keep his mind sharp. Keith was too busy sucking a violent purple hickey into Lance’s neck, so he answered by desperately smashing his groin to Lance’s. “Holy shit you are!” Lance noted, feeling the solid weight in Keith’s pants. “Tiger, Tiger let me go for a second.” 

“No? Why?” Keith nearly whined but released Lance anyway. 

“Let’s just get these clothes off okay?” Lance soothed, unbuttoning his shorts and pushing them and his underwear off at the same time. Keith nodded vigorously as he nearly clawed his own shirt off over the top of his head and fumbled with his own jeans. Lance took pity on him. He pushed his hand against Keith’s chest so he’d lay back. “Just let me okay?” Which earned him another nod from Keith. He was proud that his hands did not shake as he freed Keith of his boots, running his hands up his legs, over his hips, and popping the button open at his waistband. Keith’ hips came up in little thrusts as Lance unzipped him and began to pull the denim down. Lance breathed an oath in Spanish. “Keith. Where the fuck are your underwear?”

“Didn’t wear any. Figured this would be easier.” Keith panted in reply, wriggling to help Lance get the goddamn jeans off him. 

Lance just shook his head, tossing the jeans over by the packs and pressing a kiss to Keith’s hip. “I swear you’ll kill me one day. Until then, I guess that 75% is going to come through for you.” He hummed, trailing his kisses closer and closer to Keith’s ache. He was just so ready despite having hardly been touched. Lance teased, in his normal fashion, by peppering kisses from tip to base before finally relenting and swallowing him up. Lance always accounted himself lucky that he had been naturally blessed with a very weak gag reflex. Why? Who knows. It provided no evolutionary benefit. It was a dumb mutation, but it proved oh so useful when his boyfriend’s fingers were tangled in his hair and hips desperately trying not to thrust. He had full intention of treating Keith to one of the best BJs ever, but when he came up for air Keith’s hands stopped him from going back down.

“N-no.” Keith panted, holding Lance still. “I want. I wanna fuck you.” 

“I thought you said you wanted to bottom, earlier today.” Lance smirked, kissing one of Keith’s hip bones and massaging his thighs.

“I said I might change my mind. I did. Are you being picky?” The shorter man huffed.

Lance tormented him with one more kiss to his crimson tip. “Not at all.”

“Good. Lube’s in my pants pocket.” Keith commanded, a horny prince on his throne.

Lance normally would have had something snide to say to get Keith to collect the lube himself, but in this moment he really didn’t care. If Keith had been feeling down before, and if feel-good fucking his boyfriend’s ass minimized that weak, vulnerable feeling Lance would happily oblige. 

“Who do you want to prep?” Lance asked, laying himself back down beside Keith, accepting the other’s searching hands.

“I don’t know. You start, I’ll decide if I want to while watching you.” He was such a naughty little monkey sometimes. Lance didn’t mind though, he wouldn’t have asked if he did. He’d done this to himself plenty of times, sometimes he liked to include it when he masterbated. Sometimes it just wasn’t worth the extra time it took, and other times it was nice to treat himself. He felt his own prick getting heavier with blood when he took a moment to look over at his boyfriend. Keith’s eyes were dark, his stare predatory. It was like carnation instant boner for Lance. He could barely breath, being swallowed up by the swirling smoke of those eyes. When he’d gotten himself to two fingers Keith lost his patience.

“I wanna do it now.” Keith stated bluntly, the same way he may have said what he wanted for dinner. Lance pulled his fingers out, feeling a little hollow, but it was all the better when Keith placed two of his own, thicker fingers in that emptiness. He bit his lip. “Slower, Bonito. No rush. Love the enthusiasm, but… but we’ll get there together.” 

“Sorry.” Keith was behind him now, so all he could perceive was his hoarse whisper. 

“I know. You just want. I know. Don’t worry. I’m almost ready. Minute or two more and you’ll be inside. You’ll feel so good in me. Love it. You always fill me good and tight.” Lance purred, trying to encourage Keith with a little dirty talk. Keith could be damn near mute during sex, which was fine, but despite his silence he responded very well to a little bit of naughty talk. It had its desired effect; Keith released a feral sound and navigated Lance to lay on his side, Keith crowding behind him. Oh! Keith was going to dirty up the spooning position. That was fun! Keith loved spooning, this was a fun direction to take it. He breathed carefully as he felt Keith begin to press in. He kept himself relaxed and pliant until his lover was fully seated. “Yes, there you are, _Mi Cielo_. Right where you belong.”

“Wanna move.” Keith said, wriggling an arm under Lance and holding him, keeping Lance’s back pressed to his chest.

“Go ahead and move.” Lance consented, feeling a little breathless. He wasn’t sure if it was from being breached or the uncomfortable lack of movement. Regardless, it’s not as though his light headedness improved as Keith began moving. 

Initially it had been slow, but Keith flew on instinct and impulse and very quickly he’d became wound tight, pounding recklessly. Lance’s entire brain felt like cotton candy, especially when Keith’s hand found his swollen, tragically ignored member and began pumping him in time to the thrusts. He swore Keith was going to kill him like this one day. 

This, this right here could render him speechless. He wanted to shout and cry through Keith working him so well, but his throat just felt too tight. He could barely breath. Keith’s rhythm was starting to fail. Lance knew that signaled that he was close to the edge. Lance knew what he would do when he fell over. His eyelids fluttered shut and he now just instinctively shifted his head, giving Keith the full expanse of his shoulder. Keith almost always bit Lance if he was topping. Well, he probably would every time if he could reach Lance's shoulder. The taller man was vaguely certain that he'd have scars from it if not for the antiseptic goo he usually applied before it could heal. That was fine though. Keith could scar him, so long as he's kept him. Lance was prepared to be an owned man. No matter what he may say aloud there was always the tingle in the back of his skull, the whisper that reminded him that he was expendable; that he did not provide or serve any purpose that another couldn't probably do better. It cut deeply to be compared to others, always negatively. It was like a sticky tar seeping into your will to go on. Keith, even when they were fighting, never compared him to anyone else. It made times like this, where he was being fucked boneless, feel like he was the only one who could do this for Keith. It just was a tiny, little voice that told him Keith could have better; someone with more talent or smarts. Someone on his own level. But when all he could hear was the rush of blood and Keith’s growling in his ear that obnoxious voice was drowned out. Lance wanted to be useful and valuable; enough to be coveted or owned. He wanted someone to want to own him. Maybe one of these days he wouldn't apply the goo to his shoulder. Maybe he'd be patient. Let time heal it. Leave a ring of flesh that would always belong to Keith.

Just like clockwork, he felt Keith's hips stutter and still. It wasn't his boyfriend's cock pulsing inside him that made lights dance behind his eyelids but the feeling of Keith's incisors piercing through the meaty flush of his shoulder. He was such a sicko, he was sure. He got off on that sharp sting. Physical pain could be therapeutic. It flooded his brain with endorphins as his orgasm filled him with warm, fuzzy oxytocin. He shivered at the loss as Keith's teeth released him and he pulled out. He felt Keith's chapped lips graze the damaged skin.

“I'm sorry. I couldn't help it.” he whispered against his back as Keith's arms held him tight.

Lance had to blink a few times to clear his swimming vision. “It's all right, Keith.” He’d gotten so used to calling him only by pet names. Apparently Keith had too, because he clutched Lance a little tighter; possibly fearfully. “It's all good. You know I like it. Your boyfriend's a sick pervert that likes to be bitten and scratched.”

"Isn't it worse that I bite and scratch? I shouldn't like to hurt you. It just feels good to bite. You taste so good when I'm horny." Keith's confessed. Lance felt a hot cheek pressed to his skin.

Lance reached an arm behind himself to pat Keith's hip. “It’d only be bad if I didn't want you to. Bite me, scratch me, restrain me. It's all good. If I say yes it means it's okay to do. If I don't like something I'll stop it." He assured. "Want some water there, Champ?"

"Yes please." Keith answered, reluctantly letting Lance go get a canteen. He returned with said canteen and Dulce. He took a strong swig of the water and passed it to Keith as he lay down on his back to gaze at the stars and pluck at the strings. He listened to the sound of Keith swallowing greedily and began to hum.

When Keith was done he curled up beside Lance, staring at him rather than the stars. "Will you sing?" he's asked, expectedly. "You've not sang much today." He observed.

"Are you sure? " Lance asked, settling on a chord progression he liked.

"I know. I keep track when I hear you sing. " Keith answered. Damn he paid attention to the weirdest, most endearing shit

"If you say Bonito. Tell me to sing for you and I will. " Lance teased, expecting to make this cat huffy. However, Keith just looked at him with naked fondness (unrelated to their mutual presence nudity) and ask simply; “Will you sing for me please?"

Lance's heart felt too big and in his surprise he fucked up his strumming and had to begin again. "Shit Yeah. Yeah Tiger, I'll sing for you."

It took him a second of fumbling until he decided on some chords he liked, which led to plucking and finally the song was chosen.

" _You’re a carousel, you're a wishing well, and you light me up when you ring my bell. You're a mystery, you're from outer space, you're every minute of my everyday. And I can't believe that I'm your man and I get to kiss you, Tiger, just because I can. Whatever comes our way, we'll see it through, cuz you know that's what our love can do. And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times it's you, it's you; you make me sing. You're every line, you’re every word. You're my everything."_ he made the mistake of looking into Keith's eyes as he sang the last line. Fondness slowly drifting away to be replaced with adoration. Keith's brain was literal. He supposed words like that ultimately settled deep with him.

Lance was pretty sure those eyes could make him do or be anything. Long after he ran out of lyrics he just absent-mindedly continued to strum. "I guess, what I mean to say, is that you're really important to me. Look. I'm better when you're around." He finally said, in response to those dark, expecting eyes. 

"Lance?" 

"Yes?" 

"Can I keep you?" 

ance smiled, real, true and warm as he put the ukulele aside and twisted his arms around Keith so that his lover’s nose could be pushed into his unmarked shoulder. So he could card his fingers through the tangle of dark hair at the base of Keith's skull. 

"You can keep me as long as you want me." 

"What if I want to keep you for a long time?" 

"Hm. Offer still stands. Want to shake on it?" They were both tired and bleary-eyed as they shook hands. 

"Your mine as long as I want you and I'll be your’s then too." Keith sighed contentedly and with a snorting chuckle, he amended. "Scouts Honor." 

_Oh my God._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A doodle I made of the scene where they were walking through the grass:
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> [](http://s3.photobucket.com/user/Lily_Bell/media/goodoldfashionedloverboy.png.html)  
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> [Baby Bear](http://youareunbearable.tumblr.com/) made me a lovely bit of fanart! I just put the background in there because I have the photoshop cheats. Personally I liked this one more than my own because it was so stylized and fun to look at! Thank you so much for the art Baby Bear! I love it!
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> [](http://s3.photobucket.com/user/Lily_Bell/media/youremyeverythingHEAVYSAT.png.html)  
> 


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